Is a suit against a University Dorm for changing policies on a whim likely to succeed (USA)?

Question

I'm going to be changing some identifying details here.

Alice attends Omega University. OU has a policy which restricts guests’ access to dorms to only certain hours on certain days. The day in question is from 3 pm until midnight.

Alice arrives with her guest Arthur around 7 pm, when they are told that Arthur must leave because of an event for which OU has suspended the hours. The email informing Alice of this was sent at 5 pm.

Arthur now threatens to sue OU in a small claims court for travel costs, arguing that if OU had notified their students in a timely manner, he would not have expended resources traveling to the university.

Ultimately, Arthur decided not to sue.

If the lawsuit had gone forward, how likely would it have been that Arthur won?

Jurisdiction is USA. I am not willing to provide the state because the above events are true with identifying information changed. If a state is required for an answer, pick your favorite.

Answer 1

Arthur has no contractual relationship with OU, and therefore no right to be in any dorm, or anywhere w.r.t. the university. The university has no duty to Arthur. Alice has some relationship to the university, but that doesn't matter here. This is similar to the situation where you drive to a store to get a chunk of cheese (assume that the store has a website) and find that the store is closed for some reason, or find that they are out of cheese. You can't sue the store for the expense of driving to the store and finding your goal thwarted. They have no legal obligation to third parties to inform them in a timely fashion of closures or product-outages.

Given Alice's contractual relationship to OU, it is imaginable that the university makes a promise regarding advance notification about unscheduled changes in hours, for example, they might promise that students will receive an email pertaining to closures within 1 hour of the closure decision being made. There is zero chance that there is such a clause, which is stated in terms of something uncontrollable (receipt, not transmission, of email), and is an unrealistic time frame given the nature of OU bureaucracy (they would not willingly set themselves up like that). Furthermore, Alice suffered no financial loss. Alice also won't have a financial loss because Arthur sued Alice – Alice has in no way wronged Arthur.

Answer 2

Aside from all else, this will fail for lack of provable damages.

It's not even like Arthur had to rent a hotel room in lieu of expecting to sleep the night in the dorm room. That is not allowed, after all.

By the rules Arthur and Alice were aware of, Arthur already had to make alternate arrangements for where to stay after midnight.

And Arthur did have access to the dorm from 5pm-7pm, so the only time he could possibly claim damages for would be 7pm to midnight. Now, the walls close in on Arthur.

If Arthur had expected to store his traveling luggage there, the rule has not prevented it since Alice could simply fetch it for him at Midnight, since she is still allowed in. Arthur would need to show that is impossible.

Arthur already had a duty to obtain accommodations for the time period after midnight, when it's ordinarily expected that a person will need sleeping accommodations. It is essentially standard in the accomodation business, that a place which allow occupancy from midnight-8AM also allows occupancy 7pm-midnight. So Arthur could move his stuff there, or even move his social encounter there. To claim damages, Arthur would need to show that was impossible; and that the impossibility was reasonable (i.e. There was some reason he couldn't select a different hotel with sane/normal rules).

Even if Arthur planned to sleep rough or stay up all night, he would have to show how that was nowhere else to be from 7pm-midnight or that there was nowhere to spend those hours, such as department libraries (generally open to the public, often late hours), student union, off-campus pizza place, bar, city park, what have you).

Lacking these provable damages, the case will quickly be dismissed.

Further, if defense digs up other cases of poor merit, Arthur could be ruled a "vexatious litigant" and barred from further suits (except by approaching a judge for preapproval for a case; thus if someone crashes a plane into his house, he still has access to the legal system).

Answer 3

The university is renting space to Alice, which makes it a residential lease. In most US states there are specific provisions which are required by law, or treated as present, in any residential lease, and one of these is that a tenant shall have "quiet enjoyment" of the premises, without undue interference from the landlord. "Quiet enjoyment" is usually construed to include the right to invite guests. Whether such university regulations would stand up if challenged legally would depend on details of local law and the contract between Alice and the University.

However, although Alice might have a cause of action against OU it seems unlikely that Robert would, as he has no contract with OU. Had he refused to leave and the OU authorities forced him, or summoned police, he might have a case for false arrest or some other tort, depending on the exact events. In that case, the legality of the university regulations, including short-notice changes, would be in issue, as if they were not valid, OU would have no authority to insist that Robert leave. But the question does not follow that course of events.

At one time many US colleges and universities did exercise pervasive control over the lives and activities of students under the doctrine of in loco parentis. The history and end of this doctrine, which was largely overthrown in the 1960s, is described in "The Curious Life of In Loco Parentis at American Universities" by Philip Lee. A key early case is Dixon v. Alabama 294 F.2d 150 (5th Cir. 1961), (see the actual opinion of the Fifth Circut). That case was a matter of due process in connection with civil rights demonstrations, and the court held that at least a basic notice and hearing was required of a state university. Another such case was Dickey v. Alabama State Board of Education 273 F. Supp. 613 (M.D. Ala. 1967) where the court said:

This Court recognizes that the establishment of an educational program requires certain rules and regulations necessary for maintaining an orderly program and operating the institution in a manner conducive to learning. However, the school and school officials have always been bound by the requirement that the rules and regulations must be reasonable.

The court held that a rule which violated the free speech rights of a student was not reasonable.

In Bradshaw v. Rawlings, (1979) the court wrote:

College administrators no longer control the broad arena of general morals. At one time, exercising their rights and duties in loco parentis, colleges were able to impose strict regulations. But today, students vigorously claim the right to define and regulate their own lives. Especially they have demanded and received satisfaction of their interest in self-assertion in both physical and mental activities, and have vindicated what may be called the interest in freedom of the individual will.

Thus the special rights of a college or university to control students as parents control minor children vanished from US law between say 1950 and 1980, although I have some problems in finding the cases where these rules were applied to private schools. In connection with housing issues, the university is in no very different position than any landlord would be. The university may impose regulations as a matter of contract with its students, but these are limited by applicable laws, which will vary from state to state. In any case it may not unreasonably vary such rules without notice.