MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School

880 F. Supp. 2d 785, 2012 WL 2994107, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100785
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Michigan
DecidedJuly 20, 2012
DocketCase No. 1:11-CV-831
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 880 F. Supp. 2d 785 (MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 880 F. Supp. 2d 785, 2012 WL 2994107, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100785 (W.D. Mich. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION GRANTING COOLEY’S MOTION TO DISMISS

GORDON J. QUIST, District Judge.

Plaintiffs are 12 graduates of Defendant, Thomas M. Cooley Law School.1 They allege that Cooley deceived, defrauded, and misled them regarding Cooley graduates’ employment prospects, which caused Plaintiffs to pay more to attend law school than they would have paid if Plaintiffs had known the true prospects of their employment. The three-count amended complaint charges Cooley with violating Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act (MCPA), M.C.L. § 445.901, et seq. (Count I); fraud (Count II); and negligent misrepresentation (Count III). Plaintiffs seek, among other things, $300,000,000 in damages.

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), Cooley filed a Motion to Dismiss. (Docket no. 30.) Plaintiffs responded to the motion, to which Cooley replied. (Docket nos. 37 & 40.) Moreover, after a New York state trial court issued an opinion granting a law school’s motion to dismiss a nearly identical complaint, against a different law school, Cooley filed supplemental authority, to which Plaintiffs replied. (Docket nos. 43-2, 43-3 & 48.) This Court has heard oral argument. On June 7, 2012, this Court rejected several of Cooley’s arguments, but did not dismiss any claim in its entirety.

Because, in this Court’s judgment, the MCPA does not apply to the purchase of a legal education to attain employment, Count I does not state a claim for which relief can be granted. Counts 2 and 3 are dismissed because one representation is literally true and because Plaintiffs unreasonably relied upon the representations that comprise Plaintiffs’ misrepresentation claims. Therefore, Cooley’s motion will be granted and Plaintiffs’ amended complaint will be dismissed.

I. Allegations

The following factual background comes from the allegations in Plaintiffs’ amended complaint (which has 66 pages containing 126 paragraphs) and the attached exhibits.2

Cooley, a for-profit law school, enrolls more law students than any other law school in the country — approximately 4,000. (Amended Complaint (AC) ¶ 2.) It is ranked in the bottom tier by every major law school ranking. (Id. ¶ 5.e.) Cooley has the lowest admission standards of any accredited or provisionally-accredited law school in the country. (Id. ¶ 31.) In 2010, the incoming students’ mean Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score was 146,3 and the mean undergraduate Grade [789]*789Point Average was 2.99. (Id.) Cooley enrolls roughly 1,500 new students each year. Approximately one-third of those students fail to graduate. (Id. ¶ 32.) Don LeDuc, the Dean of Cooley, was paid more than $500,000 in 2008 and 2009. (Id. ¶ 10.)

Cooley publishes its own law-school rankings, which have been met with “great skepticism, if not outright ridicule, and no reputable academic or legal commentator takes it serious.” (AC ¶ 36 & n. 1.) Dean LeDuc and former Dean Brennan publish these rankings. “Incredulously],” (AC ¶ 35), these rankings place Cooley as the second best law school in the country. (Id.) Apparently, Dean LeDuc and former Dean Brennan think that the overall size of the student body, library total square footage, and library seating capacity are some of the factors that make a law school better than others. (Id.) Cooley still publishes these rankings, which are still available on Cooley's website at the following link, on page 22 of the .pdf document (page 1 of the actual book) http://www.cooley. edu/rankings/_docs/Judging_12th_Ed_ 2010.pdf (last visited July 20, 2012).

The crux of Plaintiffs’ complaint, however, comes from an “Employment Report and Salary Survey” (“Employment Report”) that Cooley provides to prospective and current students. (AC. Exs. 2-6.) Plaintiffs allege that Cooley “blatantly misrepresents] and manipulates] its employment statistics” in these Employment Reports. (Id. ¶ 3.) Specifically, “Cooley, through both print and internet marketing materials it produced and disseminated, makes two uniform, written misrepresentations.” (Id. ¶ 4.) The following is an excerpt from the 2010 Employment Report, which includes the “two uniform, written misrepresentations” that form the basis of Plaintiffs’ complaint:

THOMAS M. COOLEY LAW SCHOOL EMPLOYMENT REPORT AND SALARY SURVEY

2010 GRADUATES

Theodore Souris, Augustus B. Woodward, and James Witherell classes (September 2009, January 2010, and May 2010)

Number of 2010 graduates 934

Number of graduates with employment status known 780

Percentage of graduates employed 76%

Average starting salary for all graduates_$51,796

(AC Ex. 2.) The full 2010 Employment Report is attached to this opinion as Exhibit 1.

Plaintiffs allege that the statistics are “demonstrably false” for three reasons. First, Cooley’s reported placement rates and salary information have remained steady from 2004 to 2009, even though the total number of annual Cooley graduates has increased from 404 to 958 students over that time period. (Id. ¶ 5.a.) That is, according to basic algebra, if the total number of graduates increases (further saturating the legal market) and the total number of jobs available remains constant or decreases, then Cooley’s placement rate should have decreased. Second, Cooley’s reported placement rates and salary information have “barely dipped since the onslaught of the ‘Great Recession.’ ” (Id. ¶ 5.b.) Third, Cooley’s statistics are at odds with the employment statistics reported by NALP because, despite Cooley’s lenient admission standards and bottom-tier ranking, Cooley’s statistics suggest that it had a higher placement rate than 40 percent of the nation’s law schools. (Id. ¶ 5.c.) Of course, every one of these “reasons” relies upon the assumption that Cooley graduates’ employment statistics move in correlation with overall market statistics.

[790]*790All of the data in the Employment Reports is compiled from a survey that Cooley sends to all recent graduates. (Id. ¶ 39.) For Cooley’s 2010 Employment Report, about 83 percent of Cooley’s graduates responded to the survey. (Id.) Each survey returned by a graduate is unaudited, unverified, and self-reported. (Id.)

Cooley disseminates employment data and salary information to sources that are readily available to prospective students. (AC ¶ 47.) Cooley made the Employment Reports available to current and prospective students through Cooley’s website. In addition, Cooley, along with every accredited law school, provides this information to U.S. News and World Report, the American Bar Association (ABA), and the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). (Id.) U.S. News and the ABA do not require law schools to distinguish between part-time and full-time employment or temporary and permanent employment. (Id.) NALP uses employment data from law schools that differentiates between part-time and full-time employment, and temporary and permanent employment. (Id.

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Bluebook (online)
880 F. Supp. 2d 785, 2012 WL 2994107, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100785, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/macdonald-v-thomas-m-cooley-law-school-miwd-2012.