As the Florida Supreme Court ponders a similar case, a circuit judge last week backed the University of South Florida in a dispute about whether students should receive fee refunds because services were not available during a COVID-19 campus shutdown in 2020.
Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Darren Farfante issued a summary judgment in favor of USF in the class-action lawsuit, which was filed in 2021 on behalf of named plaintiff ValerieMarie Moore. The case, one of numerous similar disputes in Florida and across the country, centered on fees students paid for services such as transportation and athletics.
Farfante ruled that the USF Board of Trustees, the defendant in the case, was entitled to sovereign immunity, a concept that generally shields government agencies from liability. He wrote that it had not been shown that USF policies and regulations “contain any language obligating USF to provide any specific in-person or on-campus services at any specific time.”
“Further, plaintiff failed to provide any summary judgment evidence of any USF policy or regulation that contained language delineating how, when, or where any such services were to be performed,” Farfante wrote. “Finally, the USF policies and regulations do not contain any promise for a refund of student fees in the event of a temporary cancellation of classes. Therefore, USFBOT (the Board of Trustees) is entitled to sovereign immunity on plaintiff’s claim.”
But the plaintiff’s attorneys argued in a March 27 court document that sovereign immunity shouldn’t apply because students and the universities “entered into express, written contracts.” It said sovereign immunity has an exception “based on the principle that when state entities, such as state universities, enter into contracts, it would not be logical to then allow those same entities to assert sovereign immunity as a shield to the enforcement of the terms of the contract.”
“The undisputed evidence in this case shows that the USF student class and USF entered into an express contract where each member of the class would pay fees and in exchange, USF would provide corresponding services on campus,” the plaintiff’s attorneys wrote. “The documents and testimony in the case prove that USF made an offer to students to provide services in exchange for payment of certain fees, that USF students accepted this offer by paying for these fees.”
Until the decision, USF had been somewhat of an outlier, as other courts had rejected similar lawsuits against schools including the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University and Florida A&M University. The 2nd District Court Appeal had refused to dismiss the USF case, which led to the dispute going back to Hillsborough County circuit court for more proceedings.
The fee issues, however, have remained somewhat unresolved as the Supreme Court considers an appeal of a decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal that rejected a lawsuit stemming from fees paid by University of Florida students.
A divided panel of the appeals court ruled that an Alachua County circuit judge should have dismissed the lawsuit because UF was shielded by sovereign immunity. But the Supreme Court heard arguments in June 2024 and has not issued a ruling.
Florida universities and other schools across the country temporarily shut down campuses in early 2020 after the start of the pandemic. They continued to offer classes online, and the Florida lawsuits do not seek tuition refunds.
