Reply to Lawsuits when you don't attend

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Lawsuits when you don't attend"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Don’t sign contracts if you can’t pay your bills.[/quote]

Unsophisticated people are not really able to understand a contract like that especially if it is very unintuitive. The mom says that she assumed it would be something more like a month or two of tuition. She also thought that it would be reasonable to make her acceptance contingent on the aid package - and the fact that they made her sign the agreement without knowing the aid was pretty exploitative. Even colleges don’t do it that way. [/quote]

The mom said that she didn't read the contract.  It doesn't matter if it was "unintuitive" if she didn't read it.  She assumed it said something that it didn't. Not sure how that's the school's fault.

The article also said that there was an opportunity for her to withdraw after the financial aid decision, but that she didn't do so.  Again, not sure why the school should be responsible for that.  [/quote]

People typically don’t see the relationship between a religious private school and a lower income parent as a pure caveat emptor predatory situation where the school exerts all its lawful leverage to its pure advantage. Also even though I am a lawyer I was surprised to learn that there is strong precedent in Maryland that private schools have zero duty to mitigate. Every other context I know of the contracting parties have a duty to mitigate. She was not at all crazy to belie be it would be like the daycares she worked at (one or two months, a reasonable length of time to cover the gap in finding a new student). Also she was not unreasonable to think they were already on notice and had a duty to mitigate. This is different from pulling a child mid-year where it might be tough to get another family. [/quote]

You keep talking about a duty to mitigate like it is a magic elixir, when it has very little to do with the factual predicates of this case. It has nothing to do with the mother's understanding of the contract, and its terms.  It has nothing to do with her failure to comply with the notice requirements.  Perhaps it played a role in the outcome of the litigation, but only *after* it was established that she was in breach.

Or are you seriously suggesting that the mother based her decisions and actions on her belief that the school had a duty to mitigate?  [/quote]

I imagine the mom wouldn't have use the words "duty to mitigate" but yeah - it's absolutely reasonable that she thought that the school had plenty of time to get another child.  Remember she didn't pay the deposit!  it's not like she called them the first day of school after paying deposit, filling out health forms, etc., etc.  By not paying the deposit, she thought she had given them plenty of time to find another student or make appropriate classroom arrangements - ie, to mitigate the damage.[/quote]

While absolutely true and I think the school acted in a reprehensible way, keep in mind that the school was in the process of failing due to lack of enrollment.  Said differently, I doubt there was another kid that was in line to enroll.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics