The Appeals Court says that Michael Marks, a former veterinary student, can sue Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine for (Ross) for breach of contract after the school allegedly failed to provide promised test accommodations.
Marks claims that he enrolled at Ross after speaking with Jeanne DiPretoro, one of the school’s representatives.
She allegedly told Marks that if he attended Ross, he would receive additional time on his exams due to a documented learning disability.
Marks enrolled in Ross’s four-year program.
The program involved three years of traditional classroom learning at Ross’s campus followed by a fourth year of “clinical rotations” at a partnering veterinary school.
(During a clinical rotation, students practice veterinary medicine under the supervision of licensed veterinary doctors.)
After receiving the promised accommodations at Ross and completing his three years of classwork, Marks chose to attend Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine (Auburn) for his clinical rotations.
However, Auburn allegedly refused to give Marks extended time on his exams.
After three failed attempts at passing his “emergency and critical care rotation”, Marks flunked out of the veterinary program entirely.
He sued Ross for breach of contract.
A superior court judge dismissed the lawsuit and Marks’ lawyer appealed.
In a slip opinion issued today, the Appeals Court reversed the dismissal.
According to the Appeals Court,
The plaintiff contends that Ross committed a breach of contract when it promised to provide him with reasonable accommodations and then failed to do so. The plaintiff’s claim is premised on oral representations made by Ross’s representative, DiPretoro. The plaintiff alleges that when he was deciding which veterinary program to attend, Ross, through DiPretoro, promised that if he attended its veterinary school, he would receive accommodations for his learning disabilities such as extended time he required to complete exams and other education-related tasks. He alleges further that DiPretoro assured him that he would receive accommodations “while at [Ross],” and that the “entire reason” the plaintiff chose Ross “was due to the assurance that [he] would receive proper accommodation for his disabilities.” Ross interprets DiPretoro’s promise that the plaintiff would receive reasonable accommodations “while at Ross,” at most, as a promise that he would receive reasonable accommodations only “at Ross” and not at Auburn. In the light most favorable to the plaintiff, there is a genuine issue of material fact, to be resolved by the fact finder, about whether DiPretoro made the promise and, if so, whether the plaintiff and Ross entered into a contract that Ross would provide reasonable accommodations for all four years of the veterinary program. (Citations omitted.)
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.