Students’ COVID Claims Against Colorado State University Dismissed

After their university shut down its campus temporarily in March 2020, necessitating the completion of the semester through distance learning, students brought suit on behalf of a purported class against Colorado State University (CSU) for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. A state trial court dismissed the breach of contract claims, finding that CSU had statutory authority to shut down its campus in the event of unforeseen calamities. Moreover, because the students did have a contract with CSU, they could not sue for unjust enrichment in connection with a matter covered by the contract. An appeals court reversed the dismissal of the students’ unjust enrichment claims.

In Board of Governors of the Colorado State University v. Alderman, the Colorado Supreme Court remanded with instructions to reinstate the judgment of the trial court dismissing all claims. In so doing, the Court clarified that there was an enforceable contract between the students and CSU. However, the contract incorporated CSU’s statutory authority to shut down its campus, and thus there was no breach. The substantive portion of the Court’s opinion is quite brief. There was no breach of contract because CSU did what it was statutorily permitted to do, and that statutory authority was part of its implied contract with its students. The unjust enrichment claim was barred because it covered the same subject matter as the contract.

This is just the latest in a long series of such cases that we have been covering from time to time. Their disposition often turns on the unique facts and on unique verbiage in the schools’ promotional materials. Two recent posts on the topic can be found here and here.