Jolivet v. Elkins

386 F. Supp. 261, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11553
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maryland
DecidedDecember 17, 1974
DocketCiv. H-74-595
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 386 F. Supp. 261 (Jolivet v. Elkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jolivet v. Elkins, 386 F. Supp. 261, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11553 (D. Md. 1974).

Opinion

ALEXANDER HARVEY, II, District Judge:

Formerly a student at the University of Maryland School of Law (hereinafter “the Law School”), plaintiff, a black resident of Baltimore City, has brought this civil action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief as well as money damages because of alleged violations of his constitutional rights. Jurisdiction is asserted under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983 and 1988, and 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1334. Named as defendants are the President of the University of Maryland; the Chairman and the members of the Board of Regents of the University; the Chancellor of the University at Baltimore; the Dean of the Law School; the members of the Law School Faculty Administrative Committee; and five individual law professors.

Plaintiff was a student at the Law School for three full years but did not graduate. The essence of his claim in this suit is that defendants have excluded him from the Law School and have refused to readmit him because of his race. In his complaint, plaintiff alleges that he needs only five academic credits in order to graduate; that defendants have previously given him low grades and failing grades in his courses because of his race, thus resulting in his exclusion from the Law School; that defendants have denied him financial aid because of his race; and that *263 defendants have denied him a fair hearing in connection with his efforts to be readmitted. Plaintiff claims that by these acts defendants have deprived him of rights guaranteed by the Thirteenth Amendment and by the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As relief, plaintiff seeks an injunction requiring his immediate readmission to the Law School 1 and restraining defendants from engaging in discriminatory grading and financial aid practices and from intimidating plaintiff in the classroom. Plaintiff further asks this Court to order the desegregation of the faculty and staff at the Law School and the appointment of more minority faculty and staff and, in addition, seeks $1,-000. 000.damages together with attorneys’ fees.

Defendants have now filed a motion for summary judgment, together with supporting affidavits and exhibits. 2 Defendants assert that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because plaintiff’s claims for relief are barred (1) by limitations and (2) by laches. An opposition to the pending motion has been' filed by plaintiff, together with a supporting affidavit and exhibits. Although conceding that a three-year statute of limitations is applicable in this case, plaintiff asserts that his cause of action did not accrue more than three years before he filed suit and that in any event, the running of any period of limitations or laches has been tolled by various efforts he undertook for an administrative review of his right to be readmitted to the Law School.

Besides the basic pleadings themselves, the record presently before the Court includes (1) various motions with supporting affidavits previously filed by the parties; 3 (2) the depositions of plaintiff and of defendant William P. Cunningham, Dean of the Law School; (3) plaintiff’s interrogatories to various defendants; and (4) answers to plaintiff’s interrogatories. Following a hearing in open court on the pending motion for summary judgment, further briefs have been filed by the parties.

Summary Judgment

Summary judgment should be granted only where there is no genuine issue as to any material fact. Rule 56 (c), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. If conflicting inferences may be drawn from the evidence, or if reasonable men might reach different conclusions therefrom, summary judgment is not appropriate. Phoenix Savings and Loan, Inc. v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, 381 F.2d 245, 249 (4th Cir. 1967); Batchelor v. Legg & Co., 52 F.R.D. 545 (D.Md.1971).

The issues raised by the pending motion are (1) whether plaintiff’s cause of action accrued more than three years before June 11, 1974 when this suit was filed and (2) whether the running of limitations was tolled by plaintiff’s efforts to secure an administrative review of his right to continue as a stu *264 dent at the Law School. The basic facts material to these issues are not disputed. However, for a proper understanding of the application of these facts to the controlling legal principles, it is necessary that the history of and the other background facts pertaining to the dispute between plaintiff and the Law School be set forth in some detail.

Facts

Arnold M. Jolivet, the plaintiff, who is now thirty-two years of age, was graduated from Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland, in June 1966. In the Fall of 1965, during his senior year at college, he had applied to the University of Maryland for admission to the Law School. His application was rejected in the Spring of 1966.

In the Fall of 1966, Jolivet again applied for admission to the Law School, and his application was again rejected the following Spring of 1967. 4

According to the testimony of Dean Cunningham at his deposition, plaintiff had been initially denied admission in 1967 because he had not met the Law School’s general competitive standards in both Law School Admission Test scores (hereinafter LSAT) and in college scholastic averages. Plaintiff had taken the LSAT examination three times, achieving a score of less than 300 on one examination and later scores slightly above 300 on two other examinations. 5 Plaintiff’s college scholastic average at Morgan State was 2.8. Students who had been admitted to the Law School for the academic terms beginning in 1966 and 1967 had been required to have LSAT scores of at least 550 and college scholastic averages of 3.0 or more.

Following his initial rejection in the Spring of 1967, plaintiff visited the Law School and discussed the matter with Associate Dean William Hall. Dean Hall told plaintiff that he had been denied admission because the Faculty Admissions Committee had concluded that he would not do well in law school.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
386 F. Supp. 261, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11553, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jolivet-v-elkins-mdd-1974.