Young v. Grand Canyon Univ., Inc.

57 F.4th 861

Donrich YOUNG, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY, INC., Grand Canyon Education, Inc., d.b.a. Grand Canyon University, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-12564

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Filed: January 6, 2023

Edward Adam Webb, G. Franklin Lemond, Jr., Webb Klase & Lemond, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Derin Bronson Dickerson, Caroline Rawls Strumph, Alston & Bird, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before Jordan and Rosenbaum, Circuit Judges, and Steele,^* District Judge.

Jordan, Circuit Judge:

In January of 2015, Donrich Young enrolled in a Doctor of Education degree program at Grand Canyon University. Mr. Young claims that he did not complete his degree because, despite representing that students can finish the program in 60 credit hours, Grand Canyon makes that goal impossible with the aim of requiring students to take and pay for additional courses. Mr. Young also claims that he was not provided with the faculty support promised by Grand Canyon necessary to complete his required dissertation. According to Mr. Young, Grand Canyon's failure to provide dissertation support is designed to require students to take and pay for additional courses that would allow them to complete the dissertation.

Mr. Young filed suit against Grand Canyon, asserting that its conduct amounted to breach of contract, intentional misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment. He also asserted that Grand Canyon violated the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 44-1522. The district court dismissed the complaint in its entirety with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6).

Applying Arizona law, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm in part and reverse in part. Though Grand Canyon did not contractually promise Mr. Young that he would earn a doctoral degree within 60 credit hours, he has plausibly alleged that it did agree to provide him with the faculty resources and guidance he needed to complete his dissertation—a prerequisite to receiving the degree. Insofar as he asserts that Grand Canyon promised and failed to meaningfully provide him with the faculty support necessary to complete his dissertation, he has sufficiently alleged breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. As for Mr. Young's other claims, we affirm the district court's dismissal.

I

Mr. Young first appeared in this case in 2019 as one of the plaintiffs in an amended complaint filed in an ongoing putative class action against Grand Canyon. The complaint sought recovery for breach of contract, violations of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, intentional misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment. The complaint also sought a declaratory judgment regarding certain arbitration provisions in the enrollment agreement.¹

In the operative complaint, Mr. Young set out the following allegations, among others, in support of his various claims:

• Grand Canyon "represents that its doctoral programs require 60 credit hours to complete" including "three dissertation courses worth three credit hours each."

• The "representation that its doctoral programs can be completed in 60 credit hours is false" because Grand Canyon "does not provide the resources needed to complete the dissertation, and therefore the doctoral program, while taking the first three dissertation courses[.]" In fact, Grand Canyon "has designed its dissertation program and requirements so that it is highly unlikely that its dissertation students can complete the program within 60 credit hours," and "provides its doctoral students with substandard instruction and guidance and an insufficient level of resources to complete dissertations on a timely basis."

• Grand Canyon's "dissertation courses are not actual academic classes, but rather a mechanism whereby students receive individualized support in their ‘dissertation journey’ ... with their dissertation chair and committee members." Grand Canyon, however, fails "to ensure that a student's dissertation chair and committee members provide prompt and meaningful feedback to students regarding their dissertations and refus[es] to approve valid and methodologically sound research proposals." Indeed, Grand Canyon "intentionally understaffs doctoral committees and disincentivizes the members from promptly offering guidance to students."

• As a result, Grand Canyon "doctoral students must then enroll in additional courses to complete their dissertation."

• Grand Canyon's "faculty failed to provide [Mr. Young] prompt and meaningful feedback regarding his dissertation" and "the necessary guidance and resources have not been made available such that his dissertation could have been completed on a timely basis." As a result, he was required to enroll in and pay for "at least three continuation courses during his pursuit of a doctoral degree."

D.E. 10 at ¶¶ 19, 20, 42, 49, 68–71.

Grand Canyon filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and a motion to compel arbitration. The district court granted the motion to compel arbitration, but we reversed and remanded as to several of Mr. Young's claims. See Young v. Grand Canyon Univ., Inc. , 980 F.3d 814, 821 (11th Cir. 2020) ( Young I ). After adopting our decision in Young I as its own, the district court denied Mr. Young's motion for default judgment and granted Grand Canyon's motion to dismiss all of the remaining claims. Mr. Young timely filed this appeal.

II

We exercise plenary review of the dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. See Dorman v. Aronofsky , 36 F.4th 1306, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 2022). In conducting that review, we accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to Mr. Young. See id. at 1310.

"To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). A claim is facially plausible if the plaintiff "pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id. In other words, the factual allegations in the complaint must "possess enough heft" to set forth "a plausible entitlement to relief." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 545, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The plausibility standard "is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citation omitted). We ask, therefore, whether a claim is "substantive[ly] plausib[le]." Johnson v. City of Shelby , 574 U.S. 10, 12, 135 S.Ct. 346, 190 L.Ed.2d 309 (2014).

III

Mr. Young challenges the district court's dismissal of two breach of contract claims. The first claim is that Grand Canyon designed its doctoral program such that students cannot complete the program and obtain their degree in 60 credit hours, despite contractual promises to the contrary. The second claim is that Grand Canyon failed to provide doctoral candidates with the faculty support necessary to complete a dissertation, as promised. Grand Canyon argues, as it did below, that Mr. Young's breach of contract claims fail because he cannot point to any specific contractual provisions making either promise.

A

The majority view seems to be that the "relationship between a student and college or university is essentially contractual in nature, but the relationship has unique qualities that require courts to construe the contract in a manner that leaves the administration broad discretion to meet its educational and doctrinal responsibilities." 14A C.J.S. Colleges and Universities § 30 (Nov. 2022 update) (citing cases). As the Seventh Circuit put it decades ago, "[i]t is held generally in the United States that the ‘basic regal relation between a student and a private university or college is contractual in nature. The catalogues, bulletins, circulars, and regulations of the institution made available to the matriculant become a part of the contract.’ Indeed, there seems to be ‘no dissent’ from this proposition." Ross v. Creighton Univ. , 957 F.2d 410, 416 (7th Cir. 1992) (citations omitted).²

As might be expected, the "elements of a prima facie case for breach of contract against an educational institution for failure to deliver on specific promises or representations vary from state to state." Elizabeth O'Connor Tomlinson, 62 Causes of Action Second Series 331, Cause of Action for Breach of Contract Against Educational Institution for Failure to Deliver on Specific Promises and Representations § 4 (2014 & Nov. 2022 update). In the specific realm of graduate (i.e., masters and doctoral) studies, some states are more receptive to breach-of-contract claims than others. Compare, e.g., Univ. of S. Miss. v. Williams , 891 So. 2d 160, 170–71 (Miss. 2004) (upholding jury verdict, under Mississippi law, in favor of doctoral student on breach of contract claim based in part on university's failure to provide faculty guidance and advice), with, e.g., Soueidan v. St. Louis Univ. , 926 F.3d 1029, 1035–36 (8th Cir. 2019) (affirming, under Missouri law, dismissal of breach of contract claims by doctoral student based in part on university's alleged failures to timely assign a faculty advisor and provide an annual faculty advisor review because those matters were not enforceable promises).

The parties agree that Arizona law governs Mr. Young's claims against Grand Canyon. As a general matter, Arizona law permits breach of contract claims by students against colleges and universities. See, e.g., Snyder v. Ariz. Bd. of Regents , No. 1 CA-CV 14-0536, 2015 WL 7777075, at *4 (Ariz. App. Dec. 3, 2015) (affirming summary judgment against student on breach of contract claim because university had fulfilled its oral contract to discuss...