On October 2, 2007, we brought you the story of Lisa Dawn Rittenhouse—a Southern Illinois University School of Law student who flunked out due to low grades, then sued SIU School of Law claiming the law school discriminated against her in violation of the American’s with Disabilities Act because she suffers from "Attention Span Deficit Disorder." (Rittenhouse also alleged in the suit that she “was a qualified applicant for readmission in that in her Petition and her record of performance she demonstrated she had the capability of achieving a 2.00 grape (sic) point average".)Now, via the Minn Lawyer Blog, we learn of a copy cat case out of New England.
Seva Brodsky, a flunked out law student at the New England School of Law, sued his former alma mater.
As stated by the Federal District Court:
“This case arises out of the plaintiff's expulsion from law school for obtaining a failing grade in two courses. The plaintiff asserts that the law school, by refusing to readmit him, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (“the ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act, the Massachusetts Equal Rights Act (“MERA”) and Amendment Article 114 of the Massachusetts Constitution's Declaration of Rights (“Article 114”). He also brings claims for breach of contract and violation of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.”
The Court ordered most of Brodsky’s claims dismissed, but allowed the core claim of discrimination under the ADA to remain.
The Court pointed out that:
“In his complaint, Brodsky asserts that he suffers from a ‘mental impairment which substantially limits [his] ability to learn.’”
As we callously pointed out in connection with Rittenhouse’s similar allegations “[QUERY IF MENTAL RETARDATION WOULD NOT ALSO FIT THAT DEFINITION?]”
However, after noting that properly alleging a case under the ADA was different that proving the allegations at trial, the District Court allowed copycat Brodsky’s suit to stand. (The Court noted that “In particular, it is less than clear how Brodsky's poor “executive functioning” and memory abilities impacted his performance in two law school classes but not others.”) (See Brodsky v. New England School of Law--- F.Supp.2d ----, 2009 WL 1290674 (D.Mass.,2009).)
As for the spelling challenged litigation pioneer Lisa Dawn Rittenhouse, her case against SIU quietly settled in 2008.
Since trial courts are not likely to be as accommodating as law schools under the ADA when dealing with lawyers that suffer from a ‘mental impairment which substantially limits [their] ability to learn’, we wonder if allowing flunking students back into law school is doing either them or their future clients any favors.
But maybe that is just us.
1 comments:
Actually, law schools can make a ton of money from law students who cannot maintain the required GPA to be 'invited' back.
During my first year of law school (ABA accredited), there was a guy who was repeating his first year for the third time!. When I graduated two years later, he had just finished his second year. This student paid for 5 years worth of tuition with no degree!
Another first year student colleague of mine - the child of a VERY FAMOUS movie studio producer/executive - flunked out after our first year, went to another law school and flunked out of there, came back to my law school, repeated first year again, and again didn't make it!
From just these two individuals, my law school made over $200K. The way law schools can get away with this, is to 'advise' a poorly performing student to consider attending a non-accredited law school, or take some time off, think about it, and re-apply sometime later > BUT IF YOU REALLY ENJOY LEARNING HERE, YOU CAN PETITION FOR RE-ADMISSION. Needless to say, all the candidates I was aware of were accepted for re-admission.
Southern Illinois University and the New England School of Law ethically probably did the right thing, as long as they did their utmost to reasonably accomodate these students while demanding acceptable performance.
We had some students who would claim a disability of alcoholism in order to get special accomodations, and it worked. Not sure this was fair to either the student or his/her classmates, unless the CA STATE BAR also allows alcoholism as a recognized disability for exam accomodation.
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