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Syracuse University is the defendant in a class action lawsuit that claims the university breached its contracts with students who paid tuition and fees for the spring 2020 semester.

Plaintiff Benjamin Goldsmith, who was an undergraduate student during the spring 2020 semester, is challenging the university’s retention of tuition and fees for in-person education, experiences and services. Goldsmith alleges none were provided following the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, according to the lawsuit filed on Dec. 15.

The lawsuit claims SU breached its implied contract and obtained “unjust enrichment” from its students, as the university continued to collect full tuition and fees without providing the benefits the students would have received had they been on campus.

“Syracuse was in a better position to balance the equities of the financial consequences of the pandemic and ensure that students were not forced to incur the financial strain,” the lawsuit reads.

On March 10, 2020, SU announced a temporary transition to an online academic program until the end of the month, which was made permanent for the semester on March 16, 2020, after the confirmation of the first COVID-19 cases in Onondaga County.

For the second half of the spring 2020 semester, students participated in remote learning without access to the university’s fitness centers or libraries. The university provided some services virtually, but the lawsuit claims that it was “not what Plaintiff paid for or reasonably expected to receive.”

The university announced on March 23, 2020, that it would provide room and board reimbursement for those who had to move out of university housing because of the pandemic. However, the university has still not refunded tuition or fees from the semester, according to the lawsuit.

The class action calls for the return of pro-rated, unused fees — such as the student activities fee, student co-curricular fee, health and wellness fee and the New York Public Interest Research Group fee. It also calls for partial pro-rated tuition reimbursement, which represents the difference in value between the money students paid SU for on-campus education and the online learning environment they participated in.

A university spokesperson told The Daily Orange the university does not comment on pending litigation, per university policy.

The class action was filed by Leeds Brown Law P.C. and Lynch Carpenter, LLP in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York. The plaintiff demands a trial by jury. The firms did not provide comment to the Daily Orange regarding the lawsuit.

The class action is one of several filed against SU for its handling of COVID-19 tuition and fees. Jonathan Yin, then an undergraduate student, filed the first on May 1, 2020, but later withdrew the lawsuit. The second was filed on July 26, 2020, by then-senior Julian Minichelli, which was dismissed in April 2021 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Syracuse attorney and SU alumnus John Cherundolo filed two major class action lawsuits against SU — one in December 2020 and the other in December 2021. Cherundolo’s 2020 lawsuit was dismissed on a technicality by Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy. McAvoy ruled that the lead plaintiffs, the parents who paid for their daughter’s tuition at SU, did not have standing to sue because the plaintiffs’ daughter signed the contract with the university.

Cherundolo’s most recent lawsuit names ​​Shelby Poston, then an SU student from Pennsylvania, as the lead plaintiff. SU filed a motion to dismiss the class action for failure to state a claim in February 2022, which was met with an adjustment to the briefing schedule by Poston’s legal counsel later that month.

Published on January 14, 2024 at 8:30 pm

Contact Kendall: kaluther@syr.edu