Suit over Widener law school's job statistics can't be brought as a class action, 3rd Circuit rules
A federal appeals court has ruled for Widener University School of Law in a would-be class action claiming the school posted misleading job statistics.
The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) on Tuesday that the suit can’t be certified as a class action, report Law.com (sub. req.) and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The decision in the interlocutory appeal affirms a federal judge’s ruling on the issue, though the appeals court differed on the reasoning.
The suit had claimed the law school violated consumer fraud statutes when its website touted an employment rate of at least 90 percent for its graduates without disclosing that the statistic included “any kind of job, no matter how unrelated to law.” In reality, only 50 to 70 percent of Widener grads ended up in full-time legal positions, the suit said. The distorted statistics allowed Widener to charge inflated tuition in violation of state consumer fraud laws, the suit argued.
State courts have refused to recognized price inflation theories outside the federal securities fraud context, the appeals court said. As a result, the plaintiffs did not propose an acceptable theory of damages that would be supported by class-wide evidence.
A lawyer representing the plaintiffs, David Stone, told the Wall Street Journal Law Blog he is reviewing options for appeal and is, for now, planning to continue the case on behalf of individual plaintiffs.
