Hofstra University says it had no responsibility to help bar candidate in cardiac arrest
Hofstra University has asked a New York judge to dismiss the lawsuit of a July 2025 bar candidate who suffered cardiac arrest while taking the bar exam at the Long Island, New York, school last year, stating that it didn’t have a responsibility to help her. (Photo by Frank Eltman/The Associated Press)
Hofstra University has asked a New York judge to dismiss the lawsuit of a July 2025 bar candidate who suffered cardiac arrest while taking the bar exam at the Long Island, New York, school last year, stating that it didn’t have a responsibility to help her.
Bloomberg Law has the story.
“While Hofstra sympathizes with the plaintiff for the medical episode she suffered,” the school wrote in the Oct. 16 court filing, “the dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint is warranted, as Hofstra did not owe a legal duty to provide any first aid assistance to the plaintiff.”
Because Mary Jane Jung, a graduate of the Fordham Law School, was not a Hofstra University student, “Hofstra had no relationship with plaintiff,” according to the filing. Hofstra, “as landowner,” must “maintain and operate its property in a reasonably safe condition,” but that obligation didn’t create a duty to help Jung, according to the school’s filing.
According to her complaint in a New York trial court in Nassau County, New York, Jung suffered cardiac arrest, lost consciousness and turned blue while taking the bar exam at Hofstra last year, and other testing officials failed to help her.
Jung has sued Hofstra University and New York, which administers the bar.
If the judge agrees, it would imply that law schools and other bar exam test-taking centers aren’t responsible for the examinees’ welfare during the during the high-stakes exam.
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