77 A.D.2d 867 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1980
In an action seeking plaintiffs reinstatement to the defendant law school and damages arising out of her allegedly improper dismissal therefrom, defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County, entered February 8, 1980, which denied their motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 (subd [a], pars 5, 7) to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the action was barred by the Statute of Limitations and that the complaint failed to state a cause of action. Order reversed, on the law, without costs or disbursements, motion granted and complaint dismissed. In the fall of 1977, plaintiff commenced a three-year course of study under the Juris Doctor program at the defendant law school. At all times relevant hereto, the academic regulations of the school, as contained in its bulletin, provided that a student who did not maintain a cumulative average of 2.0 at the end of the second semester of study and each semester thereafter was "automatically dismissed” from the school. However, the faculty, upon the petition of such a student, was empowered by the regulations to grant the student "conditional advancement” into the next semester, in its discretion. At the end of plaintiffs first year of study, she was advised that she had received a failing grade in moot court. On or about June 15, 1978, and again on July 20, 1978, plaintiff was allegedly assured by the assistant dean of the school that she could rewrite her moot court brief and that, if she did so in satisfactory fashion, the failing grade would not be counted in.computing plaintiffs cumulative average. Acting in reliance upon this assurance, plaintiff did not "appeal” the failing grade received in moot court, but, instead, undertook to rewrite her brief. In the meanwhile, plaintiff was conditionally advanced into the fall, 1978 semester on the conditions that she rewrite her moot court brief and raise her cumulative average to 2.0. In December, 1978, at the end of the fall, 1978 semester, plaintiff submitted a rewritten brief and received a passing grade. However, contrary to the assistant dean’s assurances, but consistent with its academic regulations as set forth in its bulletin, the school continued to count plaintiffs failing grade in moot court in computing her average. Consequently, plaintiffs cumulative average remained below 2.0 at the end of that semester. Nevertheless, upon her petition, on or about January 30, 1979, plaintiff was granted a one-semester extension of her prior conditional advancement, into the spring, 1979 semester, on condition that she attain a cumulative average of 2.0 by the end of that semester. As plaintiff was then advised, she had thus exhausted the one and only extension of a conditional advancement permitted to a student under the school’s regulations. Plaintiff was also advised that she would be unable to apply for another extension should she fail to meet the condition imposed. After she still failed to attain a cumulative average of 2.0 at the end of the spring, 1979 semester, plaintiff was notified on or about June 18, 1979, that she was not eligible to continue as a student at the law school, that another extension of her conditional advancement could not be considered, and that any tuition she had paid toward her next semester’s studies would be returned to her. Plaintiff requested reconsideration of this, decision, citing the assurances she had been given by the assistant dean of the law school that her failing grade in moot court would not be counted in computing her cumulative average once she satisfactorily rewrote her moot court brief. Plaintiff also cited serious medical problems she had endured during the preceding academic year. On