The early 2020 shutdowns at colleges and universities over Covid are a fading memory, but they’re still the subject of a number of lawsuits brought by students who felt that their schools violated contracts with them. One such case involves the University of North Carolina, and in today’s Martin Center article, Harrington Shaw writes about it.
He writes, “After the first week of fall ’20 classes, UNC-Chapel Hill abruptly shut down in-person instruction. The following week, NC State University made a similar announcement, informing students they would ‘have to leave their on-campus housing.’ While these two schools felt compelled to abdicate their pedagogical obligations at the first sight of danger, every one of the remaining 14 UNC-System schools ‘continued campus life, keeping campus facilities open.’”
Naturally, the UNC system sought to have the case dismissed, but state courts have allowed the case to proceed.
Shaw continues, “A unanimous appellate court ruling in October 2022 found that ‘the trial court properly denied Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss the contract claims on sovereign immunity grounds because Plaintiffs adequately pled a valid implied-in-fact contract and such a contract can waive sovereign immunity.’ The three-judge panel noted the fact that the General Assembly’s decision to grant immunity for spring 2020 liabilities weakened the universities’ argument, writing that ‘there would be no need for this separate immunity statute if the General Assembly believed sovereign immunity already prevented such a claim.’”
It seems that there is a good prospect that the students will be made whole, eventually.