Tobin v. University of Maine System

• Citation: 59 F.Supp.2d 87
• Decision Date: 01 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. CIV. 98-237-B.,CIV. 98-237-B.
• Parties: Philip C. TOBIN, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

59 F.Supp.2d 87

Philip C. TOBIN, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV. 98-237-B.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

July 1, 1999.

Philip Tobin, pro se, Ellsworth, ME, for Plaintiff.

Paul W. Chaiken, Rudman & Winchell, Bangor, ME, for Defendant.

ORDER AND MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

BRODY, District Judge.

Plaintiff Philip C. Tobin ("Plaintiff"), proceeding pro se, claims that he was denied admission to the University of Maine School of Law based on his age. He has filed suit against the following Defendants: Chancellor of the University of Maine System Terrence MacTaggart ("MacTaggart"), Dean of the University of Maine School of Law Colleen Khoury ("Khoury"), and various members of the admissions committee, including Professor Delogu, Professor Cluchey, Professor Ward, and Assistant Dean Barbara Gauditz ("Admissions Committee"). Plaintiff asserts that Defendants, in various configurations, violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Counts I, II, and III), committed intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress (Count IV), breached an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing (Count V), and violated the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6101-07 (Count VI). Before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Counts I, III, IV, and V for failure to state a claim. For the reasons discussed below, the Motion to Dismiss Counts I, III, IV, and V is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint contains only a few discernable factual averments.¹ In the spring of 1997, Plaintiff's application for admission to the University of Maine School of Law ("Law School") was denied. Plaintiff was 65 years old at the time he applied. He claims that he exceeded the Law School's minimum entrance requirements and that he was denied admission because of his age.

Three of Plaintiff's Counts assert violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983"). He alleges that Khoury violated his substantive due process rights (Count I), that Defendants violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Count II), and that the Admissions Committee violated his substantive due process rights (Count III). Plaintiff seeks "presumed and punitive damages" for these alleged Section 1983 violations in an amount to exceed $150,000.00.

Plaintiff also asserts that Khoury's decision constituted intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress (Count IV) and seeks punitive damages in an amount no less than $150,000.00. In addition, he alleges that Defendants breached an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing (Count V) and seeks punitive damages to exceed $150,000.00. Finally, Plaintiff asserts that Defendants violated the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6101-07 (Count VI), and seeks both $12,500.00 in compensatory damages and no less than $150,000.00 in punitive damages.

Defendants have moved to dismiss Counts I, III, IV, and V on the basis that these Counts fail to state claims upon which relief may be granted.

II. MOTION TO DISMISS

When confronted with a Motion to Dismiss brought pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the Court views all of Plaintiff's factual averments as true and indulges every reasonable inference in Plaintiff's favor. See Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1996). The Court may grant Defendants' Motion to Dismiss "only if it clearly appears, according to the facts alleged, that the plaintiff cannot recover on any viable theory." Correa-Martinez v. Arrillaga-Belendez, 903 F.2d 49, 52 (1st Cir.1990). The Court may consider a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss brought after a defendant has filed its answer if, as in this case, the defendant raises the failure to state a claim as an affirmative defense in its Answer. See Gerakaris v. Champagne, 913 F.Supp. 646, 650-51 (D.Mass.1996).

III. DISCUSSION

In evaluating the four claims at issue, the Court is mindful that pro se pleadings generally are subject to generous construction. See Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 9, 101 S.Ct. 173, 66 L.Ed.2d 163 (1980); Simmons v. Dickhaut, 804 F.2d 182, 183 (1st Cir.1986); Fagone v. Fagone, 648 F.Supp. 488, 489 n. 1 (D.Me.1986).

A. Count I — Substantive Due Process Violation Grounded in Deprivation of a Property Interest

Substantive due process claims may proceed under one of two theories. Under the first, a plaintiff asserts that the state has deprived him of a liberty or property interest protected by the Due Process Clause, while under the second, a plaintiff alleges that the state has acted in a manner that "shocks the conscience," regardless of the existence of a liberty or property interest. See Pittsley v. Warish, 927 F.2d 3, 6 (1st Cir.1991). Plaintiff clarified in his Response to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss that Count I proceeds under the first theory and is directed solely at an alleged deprivation of a property interest.

In order to demonstrate the existence of a property interest, a plaintiff "must have more than an abstract need or desire for it ... [or] a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it." Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Property interests are derived from "existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law-rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits." Id.

As Defendants correctly note, pursuit of an education is not a fundamental right or liberty for purposes of substantive due process. See San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 35-37, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973) (noting that education is neither explicitly nor implicitly protected by the Constitution); Black v. Sullivan, 561 F.Supp. 1050, 1058 (D.Me. 1983) (observing that "[a] state-subsidized, post-secondary education is not a fundamental constitutional right" in course of evaluating constitutionality of University of Maine tuition classification rules). To the extent property interests have been identified in the realm of higher education, they generally have been assumed rather than found, and then only in cases involving matriculated, or at least admitted, students. For example, the Supreme Court has assumed that a student enrolled in a degree program has either a property interest, see Regents of Univ. of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 223, 106 S.Ct. 507, 88 L.Ed.2d 523 (1985) (holding that university's dismissal of student did not violate substantive due process), or a liberty interest in continued enrollment. See Board of Curators of Univ. of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78, 84-85, 98 S.Ct. 948, 55 L.Ed.2d 124 (1978) (finding that medical school's dismissal of student did not violate substantive due process). Other courts have followed suit in making this assumption. See Martin v. Helstad, 699 F.2d 387, 390 (7th Cir.1983) (assuming existence of property interest where plaintiff was admitted to law school but then had admission revoked when school learned application failed to disclose felony conviction); Amelunxen v. University of P.R., 637 F.Supp. 426, 430 (D.P.R.1986), aff'd 815 F.2d 691 (1st Cir.1987) ("[Defendants] may assume, as the Supreme Court has done, and we will do, that a student has either a property or liberty interest in continuing education.").

The Court is convinced that Plaintiff, who was neither accepted by nor enrolled at the Law School, can assert no more than a "unilateral expectation" of admission, as opposed to a "legitimate claim of entitlement" to it. That applicants for admission to professional or graduate school do not have a property interest in admission is well-established. See Phelps v. Washburn Univ. of Topeka, 632 F.Supp. 455, 459 (D.Kan.1986) ("it is well settled that a person does not have a property interest in admission to law school"); Selman v. Harvard Med. Sch., 494 F.Supp. 603, 619 (S.D.N.Y.1980), aff'd 636 F.2d 1204 (2nd Cir.1980) (finding medical school transfer applicant had no property interest in admission); Ramos v. Texas Tech Univ., 441 F.Supp. 1050, 1055 (N.D.Tex.1977), aff'd 566 F.2d 573 (5th Cir.1978) (holding graduate school applicant who never was accepted into program did not have property interest); Szejner v. University of Alaska, 944 P.2d 481, 486 (Alaska 1997) ("A person does not have a property interest in admission to graduate school."). Even some admitted students have been found to lack a property interest. See Unger v. National Residents Matching Program, 928 F.2d 1392, 1397 (3rd Cir.1991) (holding student accepted into university hospital residency program that was discontinued prior to her enrollment did not have property interest in pursuit and continuation of medical education).

Plaintiff attempts to circumvent this barrier to Count I by framing his claimed property interest as an interest in a "benefit entitlement," as a Maine citizen, to a professional education at a reduced rate at a state school. In essence, he argues that by denying him admission to the Law School, Khoury deprived him of a property right in the form of an opportunity to go to law school at a reduced rate of tuition. The Court is convinced that adoption of this position would lead to absurd results, for the fact of reduced tuition rates for instate residents certainly is no guarantee that any in-state resident who wishes to attend a state institution of higher education will be able to do so. Rather, the reduced tuition rates are a benefit enjoyed by in-state residents who have been deemed qualified for admission and have been so admitted.

Indeed, several courts have recognized that reduced tuition rates for in-state residents give rise to a property right, but each did so in the context of matriculated students who wished to change their status from nonresident to resident for tuition purposes. See Lister v. Hoover, 706 F.2d 796, 802 (7th Cir.1983) (noting University of...