Villarreal v. Tex. S. Univ.
| Decision Date | 31 December 2018 |
| Docket Number | NO. 01-17-00867-CV,01-17-00867-CV |
| Citation | 570 S.W.3d 916 |
| Parties | Ivan VILLARREAL, Appellant v. TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY; Dannye Holley, in His Individual & Official Capacities; Edward Maldonado (a/k/a Spearit ), in His Individual & Official Capacities; Gabriel Aitsebaomo, in His Individual & Official Capacities, Appellees |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Former law student Ivan Villarreal appeals from a trial court order dismissing with prejudice his claims against Texas Southern University and three members of its faculty. Villarreal argues that the trial court improperly granted a plea to the jurisdiction on his constitutional claims, his breach-of-contract claim, and his claims directed at the university employees in their official and personal capacities. We conclude that under governing precedents, Villarreal has alleged viable constitutional claims, and we reverse the trial court’s judgment in part and remand for further proceedings.
As required by the standard of review applicable to this appeal, we construe the pleadings liberally and accept factual allegations as true unless proved otherwise by undisputed evidence.1
Appellant Ivan Villarreal enrolled in the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University as a first-year student in August 2014. The university divided all first-year students into four sections. Villarreal was in Section 4. All but one of the first-year classes were graded on a curve. For those classes subject to a curve, a student’s final grade was made up of two parts. The first part was an exam score that was scaled against all other first-year student scores in all sections; the second was a score assigned by the professor that was scaled against other student scores in the same section. Each of those scores accounted for half of each student’s grade. The students' total scores in each class were once again curved to produce final grades. Using a typical system of grade-point averages, the university had a policy of dismissing any student who failed to maintain a GPA of 2.0 (a C average) after the completion of the first two semesters.
The university had another policy prohibiting professors from leading classroom teaching sessions during the reading period between the last day of classes and final exams. Professor Maldonado, the criminal-law professor for Section 2 who uses the "professional name" of "SpearIt," proposed review sessions during the reading period. But Assistant Dean Gabriel Aitsebaomo instructed Professor Maldonado not to conduct classroom-style teaching, on or off campus, during the reading period.
Professor Maldonado held review sessions anyway. The times and locations were disseminated by email. At the review sessions, Professor Maldonado showed students at least thirteen questions that were materially identical to questions that later appeared on the sixty-question uniform criminal-law exam that was used for all four sections of students. Some students left the review sessions with copies of the previewed questions.
Shortly after first-semester grades were posted, rumors circulated among the first-year class that "a handful of students," predominantly from Professor Maldonado’s Section 2 criminal-law class, had received pre-exam access to a number of exam questions during off-campus study sessions. By early February 2015, university administrators were aware of Professor Maldonado’s unauthorized review sessions. Dean Dannye Holley identified thirteen exam questions that were accessed by an undetermined number of students before the exam and commissioned a statistical analyst to determine the effect of Professor Maldonado’s review sessions. The statistician sought clarification that the university administrators were "quite sure" that the thirteen identified questions were the "only items that might have been compromised," as he planned to "use the non-compromised items as the ‘control’ " for his analysis. Dean Aitsebaomo responded: "There is a likelihood that the other items may potentially be compromised but the items you have are the ones we were provided evidential proof of." The statistician was instructed to assume that only thirteen questions were compromised and that Section 2 was the only section that received prior access to the questions.
In early March, Dean Holley informed the entire first-year class by email that the matter had been investigated and the exam results had been submitted to a "national expert," whose "key finding" was:
Most importantly, the overall mean difference between the alleged compromised items(13)[C] and the Non-compromised items(4)[NC] in Fall 2013 students was to be no different from the one observed in 2014. Further a comparison of the NC TO C item set performance difference between sections again showed no significant difference between sections. This finding confirms that the differences between sections are most likely random occurrences.
Dean Holley thus stated:
Hence our expert concluded no section received an advantage that made a difference in the performance between sections. The section which performed better on the thirteen items also performed better on the remaining 47, and the section which performed worst on the thirteen items also performed worst on the remaining 47. We must conclude therefore that even if the C items were previewed to a section, they did not impact the exam outcomes for those students, or the students in other sections[.]
The university advised students to file individual petitions with the Academic Standards Committee to review their individual exam scores by March 15, 2015, if they wished to preserve challenges to their grades. Villarreal relied on this email’s conclusion that the review sessions had no effect on student scores in deciding not to challenge the C+ grade he received in criminal law.
Still concerned about the "optics" of the scenario, the university implemented a "class-wide remedy." The exam was re-scored without the thirteen compromised questions. The university then allowed students the option of accepting the new score if it was higher than the original score. The university claimed that this remedy did not result in any student’s final letter grade being reduced, but in a later email to the entire first-year class, the class president stated that "at least one student’s grade was lowered."
At the end of the second semester, the law school’s registrar emailed Villarreal and informed him that he was being dismissed from the law school. His GPA was 1.98, below the minimum 2.0 GPA. Villarreal filed three petitions with the Academic Standards Committee, requesting review of his grades. He met with the committee, Dean Aitsebaomo, and Dean Holley. All stated that Villarreal missed the opportunity to challenge his criminal-law grade, with the committee noting that the university already "addressed administratively the issue of the alleged cheating in Criminal Law." Villarreal was then dismissed from the law school.
Villarreal sued the university, Dean Holley, Professor Maldonado, and Dean Aitsebaomo. He alleged that his substantive and procedural "due course of law" rights under the Texas Constitution were violated in multiple ways: by the unauthorized review sessions; by the university’s failure to provide "suitable and appropriate remediation of the gross violation of his rights" with respect to the criminal-law exam and the determination of his cumulative GPA; by the university’s actions misrepresenting the statistician’s conclusions, withholding his full report, and "covering up the affair"; and by his dismissal from law school. He also alleged breach of contract. Villarreal’s petition specifically stated it was "based solely on claims arising under Texas law" and that he "expressly disavows any federal claims."
While discovery was ongoing, the appellees filed a plea to the jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity and supported by evidence challenging some of Villareal’s factual allegations. Villarreal filed a response, asking the trial court to deny the plea or, in the alternative, refrain from ruling until sufficient discovery could be conducted. After a hearing, the trial court granted the jurisdictional plea and dismissed Villarreal’s claims with prejudice. Villarreal then filed a motion for a new trial that the trial court denied.
Villarreal appeals.
Villarreal contends that the trial court erred by dismissing his case. In their jurisdictional plea, the appellees argued that they were immune from suit. Sovereign immunity protects the State and its employees from suit and will defeat a trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction unless the plaintiff establishes the State’s consent to suit or pleads a viable constitutional claim.2 Subject-matter jurisdiction implicates questions of law that this court reviews de novo.3
A plea to the jurisdiction may be supported by evidence challenging the existence of jurisdictional facts necessary to support a claim.4 A trial court reviews the relevant evidence and determines whether there is a dispute regarding a jurisdictional fact.5 When such a fact question exists, a trial court should not grant the plea, and when none exists, a trial court may rule on the jurisdictional issue as a matter of law.6 As with a traditional motion for summary judgment, a party asserting a plea to the jurisdiction must conclusively negate a jurisdictional fact before the burden shifts to the nonmovant to present evidence raising a question of fact.7 If a jurisdictional deficiency can be cured by allowing the nonmovant to amend his pleadings, he should be afforded that opportunity.8
Villarreal contends that the trial court improperly granted the university’s plea to the jurisdiction because he stated viable due-course-of-law claims that defeated the appellees' claim to sovereign immunity. Section 19 of the Texas Bill of Rights provides: "No citizen of this...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Tex. S. Univ. v. Villarreal
...constitutional claims against the School and the individual defendants in their official capacities. Villarreal v. Tex. S. Univ. , 570 S.W.3d 916 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018). As a threshold matter, the court concluded that Villarreal had a constitutionally protected liberty interes......
-
Glass v. Sul Ross State Univ.
...interest in a graduate education,” and that his allegations sufficiently implicated it. On appeal, the Texas Supreme Court held that the Villarreal I court of appeals “misunderst[ood] the nature of liberty analysis courts have employed” in the area of dismissal from higher education.[90] Sp......
-
Doe v. Univ. of N. Tex. Health Sci. Ctr.
...because it was made on factors not reasonably related to academic criteria. See Villarreal v. Tex. S. Univ., 570 S.W.3d 916, 923 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018, pet. filed) (per curiam) (acknowledging court's prior precedent restricting review of academicdecision but noting "the rule '......