Porco v. Trustees of Indiana University

• Decision Date: 22 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-1670.,05-1670.
• Citation: 453 F.3d 390
• Parties: Christopher PORCO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY, et al. Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 390

453 F.3d 390

Christopher PORCO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY, et al. Defendants-Appellees.

No. 05-1670.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 12, 2005.

Decided June 22, 2006.

Christopher A. Porco (argued), Dewitt, MI, pro se.

Stanley C. Fickle (argued), Barnes & Thornburg, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before POSNER, ROVNER, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

Like many state universities, Indiana University charges nonresident students higher tuition than their Indiana resident counterparts. Christopher Porco was born and raised in Michigan, but he attended law school in Indiana. Shortly after he finished his first year at Indiana University School of Law, Porco petitioned for reclassification as an Indiana resident for purposes of tuition. The University denied Porco's petition, and he thereafter filed suit against the Trustees of Indiana University, the Standing Committee on Residence, the Chair of the Standing Committee on Residence, and the Associate Registrar (collectively, "the University"), all in their official capacities. Porco alleged that the University's system for classifying resident and nonresident students violated the Privileges and Immunities, Equal Protection, and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution. He demanded a preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from collecting nonresident tuition from him under the University's classification system, which he sought to have declared unconstitutional. The defendants moved to dismiss Porco's suit for lack of standing, and moved in the alternative for summary judgment. The district court dismissed the suit in part and granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment as to the remainder. Porco appeals, but we dismiss his appeal as moot for the reasons stated herein.

I.

Porco was born in Michigan and attended school in DeWitt, Michigan, until his graduation from high school in 1997. After graduation, he remained in Michigan, where he attended college at Alma College in Alma, Michigan. After graduating from college, Porco applied to law schools in Indiana, Illinois, and California. He accepted an offer of admission from the University of Indiana School of Law and moved from Michigan to Indianapolis, Indiana, in August 2001. Later that same month, he began attending Indiana University as a full-time law student.

The University maintains a set of "Rules Determining Resident and Nonresident Status for Indiana University Fee Purposes" ("Residency Rules") setting forth the policy under which a student is classified as either a resident or nonresident for fee-paying purposes. Under those rules, a student is considered a "resident student" if he or she has, for reasons other than attending school, "continuously resided in Indiana for at least twelve (12) consecutive months immediately preceding the first day of classes of the semester." If not (subject to certain exceptions irrelevant here), the student is classified as a nonresident, and must pay a "nonresident fee" as long as he remains "continuously enrolled in the University." Although it is not entirely clear from the record what the nonresident fee was at the time Porco filed suit, the current nonresident fee for graduate level courses is an additional $224.50 per credit hour.

Porco paid the higher nonresident tuition for his first and second semesters of law school. Upon finishing his second semester, Porco applied to be classified as an Indiana resident. On May 27, 2002, he submitted the University's "Application for Classification as a Resident Student at Indiana University for Fee-Paying Purposes." In it, he set forth the steps he had taken that he maintained evidenced his status as an Indiana resident. Specifically, Porco had registered to vote in Indiana, had obtained an Indiana driver's license, had registered his car in Indiana, and had opened an Indiana bank account. He had secured part-time employment in Indiana during his second semester of law school and also had a full-time summer job at a law firm in Indiana. Porco also submitted a "personal statement," in which he professed his intention to reside in Indiana for the rest of his life and raise a family there. For example, he explained his rejection of an offer of admission from the University of San Diego as follows: "I turned down this `California dream' because I knew it wasn't where I belong—I belong in Indiana." He concluded with the observation that, "I may not be a Hoosier by birth but I am one by choice."

Thomas A. May, the Associate Registrar, denied Porco's request. May explained that Porco was ineligible for reclassification under Residency Rules 1a and 1b. Rule 1a provides that an individual who moves to Indiana from another state does not acquire residency (for fee-paying purposes) until he resides in the state for at least twelve consecutive months, and Rule 1b explains that time spent in Indiana "for the predominant purpose of attending a college, university, or other institution of higher education" does not count toward the twelve-month requirement. At the time he applied for reclassification, Porco had been in Indiana just over nine months, and had been attending law school for almost that entire time. Thus, May explained, he did not meet the criteria for reclassification under Rule 1a and 1b.

Porco appealed May's decision to the Standing Committee on Residence and was granted a hearing on his appeal on June 11, 2002. At the hearing, Porco again represented that he intended to make Indiana his permanent home, and reiterated the things he had done to that end, such as obtaining an Indiana driver's license and staying in Indiana to work for the summer. Approximately one month after the hearing, Jo Anne Bowen, Chair of the Standing Committee on Residence, wrote Porco to inform him that the Committee had denied his appeal. Bowen explained that the Committee had considered Porco's reasons for coming to Indiana and his reasons for staying, but concluded that his predominant purpose in coming was to attend school, and that his purpose had not changed. Porco thus paid the nonresident fee for Fall semester 2002 and Spring semester 2003.

At the beginning of what would be his final semester, Fall 2003, Porco sued Jo Anne Bowen, Thomas May, the Standing Committee on Residence, and the Trustees of Indiana University. He alleged that the University's Residency Rules, both facially and as applied to him, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his complaint, Porco requested, among other things, a preliminary injunction ordering the University to reclassify him as a resident student so that he could pay the lower rate of tuition and continue with his classes while the case was pending. Before the court ruled on Porco's request for injunctive relief, the parties reached an agreement. In lieu of litigating Porco's request for injunctive relief under the time pressures created by the four-month semester, they agreed that Porco would tender the difference between that semester's resident and nonresident tuition—$5,825.60—to the Clerk of the Court to be disbursed in accordance with the court's final judgment.

The University then moved to dismiss Porco's suit, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. It argued that Porco lacked standing to challenge the Residency Rules because he had never truly intended to live permanently in Indiana, as evidenced by the fact that he had returned to Michigan after graduating from law school. Alternatively, it argued that Porco's challenges failed on the merits because the Residency Rules were constitutional under Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S. 441, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 37 L.Ed.2d 63 (1973), and other Supreme Court precedent allowing state schools to establish bona fide residency criteria for out-of-state students. Porco also moved for summary judgment.

The district court entered judgment for the defendants. It broke down Porco's challenges to the Residency Rules into two parts: challenges to the twelve-month durational requirement in Rule 1a, and challenges to the "predominant purpose" test in Rule 1b. The court agreed with the defendants that Porco lacked standing to challenge the twelve-month residency requirement in 1a. The court concluded that the defendants had ultimately denied Porco's application under Rule 1b (the "predominant purpose" provision), and thus none of Porco's alleged injury was traceable to Rule 1a. The court then determined that Porco had standing to challenge the "predominant purpose" test in Rule 1b, but that his challenge failed on the merits because the rule was rationally related to Indiana's legitimate interest in ensuring that only bona fide residents received the in-state tuition rate. It thus granted the defendants' motion to dismiss as it related to Porco's challenge to the durational portion of the residency rules, and granted summary judgment to the defendants on Porco's remaining claims.

The court's judgment included an instruction to the Clerk of the Court to distribute the disputed $5,825.60 to the defendants. The Clerk did so on March 10, 2004, ten business days and fourteen calendar days after the court entered judgment (February 24, 2005). On March 14, Porco appealed, and he simultaneously moved to stay the execution of judgment pending appeal, citing Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a)(1)(A) (instructing litigants to move first in the district court for a stay of judgment pending appeal). Because the Clerk had already distributed the funds upon expiration of the 10-day automatic stay, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 62(a), the court denied Porco's motion to stay the judgment as moot.

II.

On appeal, Porco reiterates his claim that the University's Residency Rules, both facially and as applied, violate...