Sixth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Suit Against Cooley Law

Today, in MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the SIxth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit by several former students at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Here’s the court’s summary of its opinion.

The plaintiffs, twelve graduates of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, sued their alma mater in district court, alleging that the school disseminated false employment statistics which misled them into deciding to attend Cooley. The graduates relied on these statistics as assurances that they would obtain full-time attorney jobs after graduating. But the statistics portrayed their postgraduation employment prospects as far more sanguine than they turned out to be. After graduation, the Cooley graduates did not secure the kind of employment the statistics advertised—or in some cases any employment at all. They claimed that, had they known their true—dismal—employment prospects, they would not have attended Cooley—or would have paid less tuition. Because their Cooley degrees turned out not to be worth what Cooley advertised them to be, they have sought, among other relief, partial reimbursement of tuition, which they have estimated for the class would be $300,000,000. But because the Michigan Consumer Protection Act does not apply to this case’s facts, because the graduates’ complaint shows that one of the statistics on which they relied was objectively true, and because their reliance on the statistics was unreasonable, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment dismissing their complaint for failure to state any claim upon which it could grant relief.

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