Class Action Lawsuits Against Chicago-Area Law Schools Dismissed

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Summary: A panel of three judges has dismissed the class action lawsuits filed against Chicago-area law schools claiming misrepresentation of employment statistics. 

Consumer fraud class actions filed against Chicago-Kent College of Law, DePaul University College of Law and the John Marshall Law School has been dismissed by the Illinois Appellate Court’s First District, according to The National Law Journal.

  

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The class actions were filed by graduates of these law schools who claimed that they had been duped by the schools and their exaggerated job-placement statistics.

The decision was made by a panel of three judges. These law schools were three of 14 sued back in 2012 by alumni.

On September 11, 2012, a Circuit Court judge in Cook County, Illinois dismissed the class action filed against DePaul. The judge ruled that the fraud claims were too broad and that the plaintiffs named in the case did not have specific evidence the school lied about the job-placement data.

The cases against Chicago-Kent and John Marshall were thrown out by a different judge from the same court two months later.

Three separate opinions were issued on Friday by the panel of judges, but all of them were similar. The three judges included Judge Mary Rochford, Judge Shelvin Louise Marie Hall and Judge Mary Anne Mason.

In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs claimed that the schools violated the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act of Illinois; negligent misrepresentation and common-law fraud.

“Plaintiffs failed to adequately allege any misrepresentations by DePaul in its employment information for the 2005, 2007 and 2009 classes, i.e., plaintiffs received exactly what they paid for (the J.D. degrees) and, thus, have failed to show any actual damages,” Rochford wrote in the DePaul case.

Image credit: Kent College of Law