University students cannot sue Yale over the remote COVID classes

Here is another case involving a university COVID shutdown and efforts by the students to gain tuition reimbursement because they had to settle for remote learning, not in-class instruction. The students lose the case.

The case is Michel v. Yale University, decided on August 7. In March 2020, colleges and universities transitioned to remote Zoom classes because the COVID-19 wildfire. Next came the lawsuits claiming the colleges were not meeting their obligations to the students because remote learning is not as good as classroom learning. The Second Circuit has resolved a few of these cases lately, see Goldberg v. Pace University, 88 F.4th 204 (2d Cir. 2023), and Rynasko v. New York University, 63 F.4th 186 (2d Cir. 2024), as it takes a few years for these cases to litigate their way through the district courts and up to the Court of Appeals.

Plaintiff, who wanted to bring a class action after Yale transitioned to online classes for the rest of the semester, loses the case. The Court of Appeals (Livingston, Raggi and Robinson) treats this as a contract case. Students, upon entering the university, sign a contract that says the institution has discretion to suspend university programs and operations in the event of public health or significant safety or security concerns. Here is the relevant clause in the contract:

Temporary Suspension of University Operations. In the unlikely event that public health or other significant safety  or  security  concerns  cause  the  University temporarily  to  suspend University  programs  and operations, the University will make arrangements for appropriate refunds,  consistent  with  the  principles enunciated in these Regulations, as may in its judgment be warranted in light of all the circumstances of the suspension and consistent with applicable law and regulations. The decision to suspend programs shall be made at the discretion and judgment of the University.

When Yale adopted this policy, I am sure they did not anticipate in a million years it would take effect due to a pandemic. But policies like this are a testament to advance planning, and it saves Yale from  a costly class action lawsuit. The Court of Appeals finds this policy, which the plaintiff agreed to when commencing studies at Yale, is an enforceable force majeure clause, which is a “contractual provision allocating the risk of loss if performance becomes impossible or impracticable, esp[ecially] as a result of an event or effect that the parties could not have anticipated or controlled.”Clauses like this are legal, and other institutions should probably use the Yale policy in case they don't have one already.