Admission Denied

Parents Forum
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<p>tlaktan, you are right - I said that I understand why she does not want to pursue the issue because it is not emotionally healthy. Students should always go to a place that wants them. otherwise, it's like being on a date with a person whose mother made him ask you out.</p>

<p>I am not advocating legal action. But I am outraged at the gaul of this school to treat this mistake so nonchalantly. </p>

<p>There are two reasons anyone should pursue legal action. One is to be indemnified for your own injury. The other is to stop the malfeasor from doing the same thing in the future. I was focusing on the latter.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
There was other action taken - the student announced to all her family and friends that she was accepted. She suffered as a result

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<p>this is not an acceptance</p>

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<p>No the school did not fullfill its end of the initial contract. Student paid for a decision - school gave a decision then school recinded decision. Student had every right to rely on the initial reponse and when he suffered pain and humiliation as a result of relying on good faith of the school is entitled to compensation. Further the contract had explicit dates. The school was bound to respond by a certain date. Once the school responded student had until a specific date to accept the offer.</p>

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<p>I'm not a lawyer, so I won't join in the debate. But I will add that this point was in fact already litigated in the UC Davis case, and the suing parents and students LOST. The school was not forced to offer admission or pay damages to the students who had been sent admit letters by mistake. Stare decisis.</p>

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<p>if stare decisis was the sole basis of interpreting legal aspects, then Brown v. Board of Ed wouldnt have happened</p>

<p>I suggest suing the school for all they are worth!
Even if they do end up disgusting you, file motion after motion to have them rack up legal fees. This way, you will hit them where it hurts, the pocketbook.</p>

<p>Heck, it might even be something to put on your resume if you successfully beat this.</p>

<p>my advice is to find a lawyer who does pro bono work and have them sue the hell out of this institution!</p>

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<p>Filing motion after motion to cause a party to rack up legal fees becomes pretty transparent and the egg just might fly back into your own face - the op loses the suit and is saddled with costs for both parties. The goal is to attend college, not to become a full-time litigant/irritant.</p>

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<p>Look, I am a lawyer. I evaluate cases to determine if my client has a reasonable chance of success under the law as written. I also evaluate them to determine if my client is "in the right" in a way that an average person, with full understanding of the facts, would agree with - and which I in fact agree with. 30+ years of court experience have taught me that without both there's no hope of success, and I won't take the case. For all of you who have been brainwashed by incessant big business propaganda into believing that people get rich off of "frivolous litigation" in this country, I've got news for you: If you're not actually in the right and actually injured, you've got no hope in court. Even if you are in the right, you've got a 50-50 chance of being shut out by some law passed in the name of "reform" which prevents legitimate claims from being redressed. <soapbox off=""></soapbox></p>

<p>There's no legal claim here. The girl has no damage (hurt feelings or embarassment of the type we're talking about her aren't compensable at law.) The way [RD] college admissions work is, the student files multiple applications, not committing to attending any particular one. One or more "admit" the student, knowing that she may or may not accept the admission and actually attend. Only when the student commits to attending one of the colleges - and either sends in her deposit or notifies her other choices that she is withdrawing her application to them - do any real legal rights attach. Before that, it's all a dance.</p>

<p>And by the way - I have a neice who was one of the students who received the infamous UC Davis letter. It was actually not an admission letter, but a scholarship one. When she was notified that it was a mistake, yeah, I got a call. And I advised her parents to let it go, using the same explanation I wrote above. The parents who sued had bad lawyers and bad judgment, in my opinion. My niece went to Berkeley instead (no scholarship) and loves it. No harm, no foul.</p>

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<p>Lord, get lawyers arguing contracts and see what happens. 1L for all of us all over again. :)</p>

<p>My two cents is there was no contract because the offer was rescinded before it was accepted. And I don't see the detrimental reliance angle. Hayden, I understand your point, but the fact is that not every wrong has a remedy. </p>

<p>Having said that, if she really wants to attend she should certainly contact the school and appeal to their basic sense of fairness. The fact that she was waitlisted instead of rejected implies that she is at least in the ballpark for acceptance, and since the university really screwed up they should make it right.</p>

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<p>kluge you didn't really address the law in your critique only the likelihood of success. Yes of course no lawyer would take the case because there is no money in winning and not much redress for the embarassed student - assuming of course she hadn't withdrawn applications elsewhere or sent in her deposite yet. However that is why we have small claims courts! I'd go to court to get my application fee back just to spite them and make their counsel earn his retainer.</p>

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<p>patuxent that is what I would do!</p>

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<p>My heart, and my sense of outrage, have me on patuxent's side. My head, and where I would end up if it were me, are 100% on iderochi's side. (well said, iderochi). On the third (?) hand, the poor girl is actually doing exactly what she should do - putting it all behind her, and looking forward to a good year at a school that truly wants her.</p>

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<p>Well said, Iderochi.</p>

<p>Gosh, I log on to CC to get <em>away</em> from law school, not to have it all over again! ;)</p>

<p>Glad to hear that she's getting over it. If she's really not going to attend, I would recommend the scathing letter route, but within bounds (she might end up wanting to go there for grad school). Also, have the guidance counselor call up - disinterested party who might command some respect. A simple, "We will reconsider suggesting this school to our top students if this behaviour keeps up" might do the trick.</p>

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<p>Actually, Iderochi, I think all the lawyers agree. It's the non-lawyers who want to "sue the bastards". Patuxent, the law requires an actual, compensable injury. "I suffered pain and humiliation when they told me it was a mistake" is not a legally compensable injury. The "likelihood of success" is zero because that's the law.</p>

<p>For a guy who hates tort lawyers you seem really ready to let the courts torque around somebody who apparently made an honest mistake which offended a personal issue that you find inportant. That's not uncommon, actually. I hear from people pretty frequently who tell me they personally disapprove of all the frivolous litigation out there, and then try to get me to sue somebody under circumstances the law won't allow. (I'm not a tort lawyer.)</p>

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<p>What's all this lawyer junk about? Yeah what the school did is absolutely horrible, but suck it up and move on. The girl has the right idea in getting psyched over her 2nd choice school ... a school that actually wants here. She seems more mature than most of the people here. When nothing goes your way in this country, it's SUE SUE SUE WHINE WHINE WHINE.</p>

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<p>kluge - the compensible injury is the admissions fee. I readily admit I am not a lawyer but I do know something about the financial world where promises are bought and sold every day to the tune of billions of dollars. If those contracts are not enforcible our financial system is in deep doo doo. Noone knows their ultimate worth of options and futures to name two that most common sorts of promises that are bought and sold. An option is nothing more or less than a promise to sell me something at a given price at a given time generally in the future. If I take an option in compensation for some service or buy it in the hopes of turning a profit in the future I don't ecpect the party who sold me the option or gave it to me in compensation for my services to be able to change the terms of the promise. I definitely do not expect him to come to me and say oh sorry I made a clerical error and sold that option way too cheap or didn't mean to have that exercise price or that exercise date blah blah blah. And I don't think the courts would make me wait months or years or decades in some cases to determine the ultimate worth of that promise (if any) before telling the seller tough luck numnuts. </p>

<p>We all have an interest apart from any personal harm we might suffer in seeing that people honor their contracts. In this particular case the school said if you pay the admission fee and fill out the forms and send in the test score and reccomendations etc etc (all things of compensible value) we promise to render a decision by a given date on your eligibility for admission and allow you a fixed period of time to decide whether you want to exercise that offer of admission. I don't see how that is materially any different from me buying an option or a future and then having the firm that sold it to me come forward and say sorry we made a clerical error we are taking the option away from you and oh by the way we are keeping the admission fee. My answer would be you want to take the option back then show me the money.</p>

<p>BTW aside from anything else what the school is doing is as cheeseball a busness practice as I have ever heard. And since it is a state school rather than suck up to the incompetent nimrods running the admissions department I'd contact my state legislators and give them an earful. Elected officials generally hate folks who use allocated money to **** off their constituents and find ways to make them wish they hadn't.</p>

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<p>
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I readily admit I am not a lawyer

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</p>

<p>Which is probably why you are unwilling to acknowledge there is no cause of action.</p>

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<p>Yeah - you are probably right but I'd rather have a judge tell me that than take your word for it. </p>

<p>BTW for being a professional legal advocate you haven't exactly presented a detailed arguement as to way the application fee isn't compensible or why the student shouldn't be allowed to decide to accept or reject the initial offer by the schools usual stated deadline.</p>

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<p>Get back to us with the answer.</p>

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<p>As the law student (thinking about this as an exam question, not a real-world question), I would think that the admissions fee is a type of option contract. We allow people to contract for a chance (record companies are an excellent example - you sign over a ton of rights for the chance for them to help you make it big). This would be a chance at an option contract...? I say option contract because, once the school accepts, it is bound, but the student is not. Still a contract!</p>

<p>So, fee and application = offer for option contract, contracting for a chance at said option. Letter of acceptance = acceptance of option contract - there is now an option contract between the parties. This has to stay open until 01 May, which did not happen.</p>

<p>Now, I agree that there is no compensable injury (unless IIED, but that would be a tough one). Negligence in tort does not allow for recovery of purely psychic harms. If she sent in the deposit the day of receiving the letter and sent back responses to the other schools, saying she wouldn't be going, there would be reliance, but that isn't happening here.</p>

<p>HOWEVER - she would be asking for specific performance on the contract, not money. Why is that not a possible remedy (in theory - someone, maybe Jonri, astutely pointed out that it would be a life of hell for her to go there under that situation)?</p>

<p>Back to the real world...
I stand by what I said earlier - this is the type of thing which is poorly suited to litigation. What lawyers understand, but non-lawyers do not, is that some harms are not (and should not be) compensable at law via litigation. Call it the "life isn't perfect" doctrine. Someone slips and falls on your sidewalk; total harm (the $150 for stitches) is less than it would cost to defend the lawsuit... although you don't think you are at fault, you pay. You slip and fall on someone's icy sidewalk; total cost, $150. Lawyer's fees to help you recover that: $2,000, so you don't sue. </p>

<p>More than that... as a policy matter, litigation, IMO, is the last resort to a series of really bad situations. It's messy, hard on everyone, lengthy, expensive, and has a huge societal cost. One or both parties has really failed if it comes to litigation. </p>

<p>Scathing letter + guidance counselor's scathing phone call + maybe a call to the state legislators re: the public higher ed systems is preferable. </p>

<p>For the lawyers - I'm very open to corrections, advice, comments, etc.</p>

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<p>lol.....u know she is probably ranked #1 on the WAITLIST, and will get IN in May..........btw lawyers can be so annoying.</p>