All Posts Tagged With: "lawsuit"
Drunk student paralyzed by fall from bed
Sues university for negligence
An American student who fell asleep drunk and woke up paralyzed after falling more than a metre from his dorm room bunk bed is now suing his school, Fordham University in the Bronx. Kei Usami, 20, smashed his head so hard that he fractured his spine, according to a the New York Post. His suit alleges the university was negligent for failing to put guardrails on the bed. The former tennis player is now in a wheelchair. He says his goal is to walk again by the time he graduates in 2013.
Banished over alleged harassment, prof sues Ryerson
Says he never got a chance to defend himself
A Ryerson University associate dean is suing the school for breach of contract and defamation after he was put on paid leave in March and told to keep off campus property, except when teaching his lone class, reports The Toronto Star. James Norrie, an IT expert with the Ted Rogers School of Management, wrote in his statement of claim that he wasn’t initially told why he was being removed, except that there were allegations of harassment and conflict of interest. He also wrote that Ryerson gave him no chance to respond to the charges and that it was only after repeated requests that he learned the allegations involved “profanity directed at persons, ridiculing or belittling persons and other inappropriate action.” Stephen Gleave, a lawyer working on the university’s behalf, told a Toronto court Wednesday that the the school’s investigation “may include 20 persons.” Norrie is requesting more than $575,000, a public apology in a national newspaper and an injunction that will allow him to attend convocation ceremonies.
Concordia grad students sue Canadian Federation of Students
Third Quebec student union to file suit against national lobby group
The Concordia Graduate Students’ Association has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the results of a referendum to leave the Canadian Federation of Students recognized.
The referendum, held last spring, saw students vote 456 to 148 in favour of leaving the organization but the vote, which was conducted without CFS support, has not been recognized by the Federation.
Undergraduates at Concordia and McGill graduate students are also suing the Federation, seeking to have the results of votes to leave the group recognized by the courts.
The two Concordia suits share several similarities, in both cases the CFS refused to allow referendums , in part, on the grounds that the student unions had years worth of unpaid membership fees. According to the GSA’s motion to institute proceedings, the CFS claimed they were owed $200,000. According to the motion, a lawyers letter sent to the GSA six weeks prior made no mention of an outstanding debt, as well, they argue that if the GSA had a debt dating back to 1994, it would have been claimed before March 2010 and would have been mentioned at a CFS general meeting.
Like the Concordia Student Union’s suit, the GSA attempts to establish a pattern of bad faith by the CFS when it comes to referendums. They also claim that students’ Quebec charter rights were violated and are seeking $100,000 in damages.
The CFS is now facing five lawsuits in Quebec. In addition to the three suits filed by student unions the lobby group is also being sued by its former Quebec branch and that organization’s former landlord.
The only CFS member in Quebec not currently suing the organization is student union at Dawson College, a CEGEP, a referendum was supposed to take place there but it still hasn’t happened.
The GSA and CFS will be in court on May 20.
Student sues TRU for alleged ‘discrimination’
University says claim is ‘scandalous’
A student is suing Thompson Rivers University for alleged “discrimination” relating to his medical condition, the Kamloops Daily News reports. Adrian Miller says that during the 2007-08 school year he missed several classes due to health problems, but was not properly accommodated by his instructors. A number of Miller’s courses are marked on his transcript as “Did not Complete.” As a result, he became ineligible for continued access to student loans. Miller, who filed the suit a year ago, is seeking $250,000 in damages. The two sides were in court earlier this week, arguing over how case is has been proceeding, and a trial is expected for 2012. TRU calls the allegations “vexatious and scandalous.”
UBC Okanagan wants roads, neighbours want fences
Farmers sue university over cycling students using their road
Sometimes it’s not easy for UBC Okanagan—UBC’s Kelowna-area campus—to fight conceptions of being a middling rural college (as it was before it was taken over in 2004). The school 
has over 5,000 students, a burgeoning research and graduate program, and doubled in physical size last month.
Yet, there have been a grand total of two stories from UBC-O that have gotten national coverage this summer. One is about a “Petey the Peacock,” a rogue bird that showed up out of nowhere to suddenly patrol campus and delight students, only to be removed by the administration.
And the other is about how them Duke Boys keep driving them fancy mopeds down old man Peterson’s private dirt road on the way to school, infuriating the townsfolk!
That last sentence is only partially incorrect. Really.
A group of farm owners have launched a suit against UBC, asking the BC Supreme Court to bar students from using their road, which they argue they have full control over. Earlier this year, they erected a fence to stop the cycling scourge, but the university got an injunction against the fence, contending that they have been bequeathed access to the road by the province.
Andrew Bates, Editor-in-Chief of the UBCO Phoenix newspaper, wrote a great feature on the decade-old squabble earlier this year. The issue stems from the fact that thousands more students attending UBC-O then they did when it was known as “Okanagan University College,” and the only way for bicyclists to get to campus without going on the highway is the dirt road.
In this debate, private land owners certainly have a point. But so to do students. Discerning viewers of the map attached (click to enlarge) will note that UBC-Okanagan is surrounded by a) a highway, b) farmland, c) golf courses, and d) more farmland. Bus service to the university is still sub-par, owing to its relatively rural location. So sustainable transportation isn’t exactly easy, and while residents can say “not in my back farm” all they want, UBC seemingly does have legal right to use the road, and for lack of better alternatives, one imagines the road will continue to be used for some time.
Ultimately, the university will probably be involved in developing a compromise, and it isn’t far-fetched to think that it will come from the 236 acres of land they purchased next to its academic lands. But the story is a reminder that UBC would prefer that good roads, rather than fences, define its relationship with its neighbours—both in Kelowna and Vancouver.
Another week, another student lawsuit
Cambrian College sued for $20 million, over allegations it misrepresented its health and information management program
Cambrian College is facing a $20 million lawsuit over allegations it misrepresented its health and information management program. The suit, filed by 11 students, claims that Cambrian mislead them about the school’s intentions to become certified by the Canadian Health Information Management Association, which is responsible for controlling entry into the profession.
College president Sylvia Barnard and two other administrators have been named in the suit. The allegations have not been proved in court.
Cambrian began offering the health and information management program in September 2005. According to the statement of claim, quoted in the Sudbury Star, “Prospective students were told in promotional materials and through outreach activities about the possibility of entering the ‘high-demand’ field of professional health information management.”
The claim adds that the college advertised that the “HIM program was based on requirements established by the Canadian Health Information Management Association, which controls entry into the profession through a national certification program and that the college’s program would be CHIMA certified.” According to the student plaintiffs, it was not until 18 months after the program began that the college began applying for certification, a process that was not completed.
President Barnard denies the allegations. “We will be working through the process because we do not feel that there has been any wrongdoing on behalf of the college. Other than that, we’ll be defending ourselves vigorously, but I can’t go into any other detail … It’s before the courts, so at this point I can’t comment any further,” she told the Star.
George Brown College faces class action lawsuit
Students allege college misled them about industry designations
A class action lawsuit alleging a Toronto college misled students about what they would get out of a business program has received certification from a judge to proceed.
Two former students of George Brown College’s international business management program allege it didn’t have the ability to confer the industry designations it promised. They launched the lawsuit in October 2008, seeking $10 million in damages and an Ontario Superior Court judge has now certified it as a class action suit representing 119 former students.
The allegations have not been proven in court.
The students say they paid as much as $11,000 to attend the eight-month program. The calendar said the program would provide students with “the opportunity to complete three industry designations/certifications” in addition to a graduate certificate from the college, according to the students’ statement of claim.
Upon completion they learned they wouldn’t be receiving the industry designations referred to in the course calendar, the students allege. In his decision, Justice George R. Strathy said most students would have read the calendar description and that the prominence given to the industry designations would suggest they were significant.
“A class action will provide access to justice to a vulnerable group of students, many of whom are from different lands and culture,” Strathy wrote. “Class members may lack the individual resources, initiative and sophistication to pursue legal action on their own and may be intimidated by the legal process.”
Of the 119 former students, 78 were international students who don’t live in Canada — most of them coming from either China or India.
The Canadian Press
Sunday SFU Post #2: SFU-CFS dispute keeps going and going and…
going. In my experiences, debates on campus concerning the two national student lobby groups, CASA & CFS, are extremely interesting to campus journalists and politicians, and duller than a Canadian sitcom to everyone else (I’m looking at you, Little Mosque). That being said, I’m estimating campus journalists and politicians make up a disproportionate portion of [...]
going.
In my experiences, debates on campus concerning the two national student lobby groups, CASA & CFS, are extremely interesting to campus journalists and politicians, and duller than a Canadian sitcom to everyone else (I’m looking at you, Little Mosque). That being said, I’m estimating campus journalists and politicians make up a disproportionate portion of my audience, so I’ll bite: A B.C. Supreme Court judge has declined to make a summary judgement of the legal battle between Simon Fraser and the CFS, and has asked them, like two squabbling schoolkids, to settle and make nice out of court.
It’s possible that the two sides will settle. Of course, given the fact that this has already been going for a year with neither side willing to budge, it’s even more possible that this will drag on in legal limbo for some time.
In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Advice from the entitled: How to get a job after graduation
Ten surefire ways to make sure you’ll be in your parents’ basement for a very, very long time
The following list was inspired by Trina Thompson; the 27-year-old, lawsuit-happy, unemployed Monroe College grad. My OnCampus colleague, Jeff Rybak, discusses the issue here, aptly noting that there is much more to this story than a punch line. But alas, for me, the punch line is just too good to resist.
How To Get a Job After Graduation
1. Get your name out there
It’s best if the word “loon” doesn’t share any page space, however.
2. Assert your value
Parade just how unemployable you are through a widely publicized lawsuit.
3. Illustrate your social conscience
Suing at a time when millions of seasoned workers are being laid off will reveal just that.
4. Invest in an Oxford Dictionary
C-o-u-n-s-e-l-o-r
5. And a Good Grammar Book
“They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement.”
6. Be demure
Demanding $2,000 for stress because you’ve been unemployed for three months shows you can deal with pressure. Cool, calm and collected: that’s you!
7. Show your interpersonal skills
Involve your mommy.
8. Make meaningful theoretical contributions to your field
Get your ideas out there and change the way people think. For example, Thompson has shown us that post-secondary degrees and Velcro shoes aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
9. Boast transparency
Take after Thompson and put it all out there. Through her fuss, employers who would have been solely concerned with her work experience now know about her 2.7 GPA. So uncheck “private” on all your semi-conscious, under-clothed, deliciously inebriated Facebook photos and wait for the offers to flood in.
10. Be a community advocate
Thanks to Thompson, universities are now thinking about offering new common sense courses. On the table are:
The Art of Lawn Maintenance
Crossing the Street: More than Technique
Colouring Inside the Lines: For Advanced Artists
Way to go, trailblazers!
Alright, we’ve had our fun, but who knows? Maybe Thompson’s out-of-the-box thinking will land her a position at a prestigious law firm, or else get her her own reality show. A quick Google search of “Liebeck v. McDonald’s restaurants” or “Octomom” will reveal that neither is beyond the realm of possibility. I guess we won’t be laughing then.
Does your university owe you anything at all?
Student sues her college because she’s unemployed — but there’s more to this story than a punchline
A reader here reminded me that we haven’t talked about this story yet. Thanks Brian! He linked it back, very correctly, to my discussion concerning consumer attitudes among students. The short version is that a student is suing her alma mater because she’s still unemployed after graduation.
Now this is an interesting story on many levels. We can sit back and laugh at the student, if we wish, and her unrealistic expectations. We can shake our heads at the litigious culture that predominates in the United States. We can talk about consumer attitudes projected in an unhealthy way on the post-secondary environment. But a lot of that’s been done already. Here’s Rate Your Students on the topic, if you’re interested. Fantastic site, btw, if you ever want to get into the minds of your professors.
What I’d like to do is offer you all the next step in this story. This hasn’t even happened yet, but I would be willing to bet that it will. I don’t really know New York law, but every jurisdiction needs a way to keep the real time wasters out of court. In Ontario you’d do that through a motion for summary judgment. That basically means you go before the court and say “this case discloses no genuine issue for trial.” In theory this saves everyone a lot of time and effort when it’s true. But the decision on the motion becomes significant as well.
Now, I’ll bet that the lawyers for Monroe College are going to do something like that. They’ll argue that even if everything in the plaintiff’s claim is true – here are her documents (thanks again, Brian!) – it still doesn’t add up to a lawsuit because you just can’t sue for this. I’m grossly over-simplifying, of course, but there will almost certainly be a preliminary motion of some sort on this topic.
So here’s where it gets interesting. What will the court decide? I don’t think this student has a hope in hell of winning her case. No chance of that. But the preliminary question will be very interesting indeed. The court will essentially have to decide, in general terms, if it’s even possible to sue your post-secondary institution for not doing enough. And that’s a very complicated question, especially in the States where there’s a lot more private education and the market is allowed to decide things that we regulate here in Canada.
The story is funny, yes, on many levels. But there’s some meat here also. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
—
Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Student sues Carleton for broken nose
Skidmore didn’t file his claim until four years later
A former Carleton University student who was “viciously and brutally assaulted” inside a campus dorm is suing the school for failing to protect his safety.
In a case that could force every university to ramp up security, David Skidmore claims Carleton is just as responsible for his broken nose and lingering bouts of depression as the two students who allegedly attacked him.
“It was a terrifying experience,” says his lawyer, Kevin Wolf. “Things like that should never happen on a university campus.”
What happened on Sept. 12, 2003, was no doubt traumatic. A first-year student at the time, Skidmore says he was punched, kicked and knocked unconscious after coming to the aid of a female neighbour who was “being harrassed” by two other students.
But his lawsuit—which demands $750,000 from his assailants and the school—begs the obvious question: what more could Carleton have done to prevent such random fisticuffs?
In his statement of claim, which has yet to be tested in court, Skidmore accuses the university of a laundry list of negligence: failing to provide a “reasonably safe” residence, failing to “employ adequate security,” failing to repair a broken lock on the Stormont House door, and failing to foresee the violent tendencies of his two attackers, both of whom were off-campus students visiting the residence “illegally.”
But in its statement of defence, the university insists that campus security was more than adequate, and if anyone is to blame for Skidmore’s injuries (apart from the other two students) it is Skidmore himself. In fact, the school claims he was intoxicated that night, threw the first punch, and taunted his attackers with homophobic slurs.
Now 24, Skidmore is a security guard at Canada’s Wonderland. When asked why he waited so many years to file this lawsuit, Wolf says his client hoped the physical pain and psychological trauma would eventually pass—but neither has.
“His family are not litigious people, and they are not pursuing a frivolous claim,” he says. “Money is not the motivating factor. The family wants answers.”
Laurentian students told to pay up
Students rejected from full-time studies owe school $38,000
Three students at Laurentian University will pay $38,000 to the school after losing an appeal in Ontario court. The students complained that they were unfairly barred from graduate studies in biology.
Bryce Mulligan, Mathew Hunter and Hsai-Pai Patrick Wu were rejected from grad studies because the school said that they didn’t meet the funding requirement that mandates each student to earn at least a $15,000 stipend in order that they “do not suffer from financial duress” during their studies.
Related: Carson Jerema’s comments on the Laurentian situation
The students raised money, but not through the proper methods. They filed a complaint and originally lost in a unanimous decision of the Ontario Superior Court last August.
The school did offer the students entrance into a part-time program, which they accepted. But PhD student Linda St. Pierre, who is working with the three students, told the Sudbury Star that she is a bit confused by the university’s actions because full-time students have more financial-aid options than part-timers.
“I don’t get how they logically explain why part time is OK and full time isn’t,” she said. “We have the e-mail from the chair saying it’s to make sure students can live comfortably. They are actually suffering more in the part-time status than they would under full-time status.”
Mulligan, Hunter and Wu were also three of 24 students who filed a $30-million lawsuit against Laurentian and 18 other individuals in 2006 after students and their professor, Michael Persinger, were banned from an animal-care facility on campus. 16 of those individuals have since been cleared of wrongdoing, and three of the student plaintiffs have withdrawn from the case.
Laurentian released a statement that hoped for a speedy conclusion to all legal proceedings between students and the school.
“The university hopes the Court of Appeal’s recent decision, as well as two other court decisions in favour of the university, will encourage the students to now consensually bring an end to all legal proceedings initiated by current and former students in the Behavioural Neuroscience program,” said Dr. Harley d’Entremont, vice-president academic francophone affairs and director of academic-staff relations.
