June 2008

About an hour south of Boston, not far from Buzzards Bay, is the small town of North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. North Dartmouth boasts of having a Comfort Inn, a Best Western Inn, the Moby Dick Motel on State Road, and the Southern New England School of Law (SNESL). SNESL, founded A.D. 1981, is a non-ABA accredited law school, rendering its articulated mission statement of turning out students who have the intellectual and practical training necessary for the practice of law somewhat more challenging as its graduates cannot sit for the bar in most jurisdictions. According to the school website found at  http://www.snesl.edu/maincontent.aspx?p=22&t=1, graduates may sit for the Massachusetts and Connecticut bar examinations immediately after graduation, and “may sit for the bar examination in a number of other states after they are admitted to the Massachusetts or Connecticut bars.” Further, graduates who have passed the Connecticut bar examination may be admitted to practice in the Federal District Court for the Eastern and Southern districts of New York (including New York City, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties), as well as in the bankruptcy courts for those districts.

Joseph Rodi wasn’t interested in being licensed in Massachusetts or Connecticut. He graduated from the school in 2000, but was unable to sit for the bar examination in his home state, New Jersey. Undeterred, Rodi sued SNESL in federal court, alleging that his law school deans made false statements regarding the school's accreditation prospects and induced him to remain at the school and forgo other career opportunities. He charged the school and its former acting deans with fraud and violating the Massachusetts consumer protection statute. The district court granted summary judgment for SNESL after concluding that no reasonable jury could find Rodi's claims meritorious. The First Circuit has affirmed that decision.

When he applied for admission at the school in 1997, the ABA's Accreditation Committee recommended SNESL for "provisional accreditation," which would allow graduates of the school to sit for the bar examination in all fifty states. The then Acting Dean of the school, Francis Larkin, sent prospective students, including Rodi, a letter detailing this development. Although Larkin noted that the Committee's recommendation had to be ratified by two more ABA entities, he wrote, "We are highly confident of gaining these favorable approvals at the ABA Annual Meeting in August." It is noteworthy that, at all relevant times, the law school catalogue contained a disclaimer that provided: “The Law School makes no representation to any applicant or student that it will be approved by the American Bar Association prior to the graduation of any matriculating student.” Despite Larkin's optimism, the ABA denied provisional accreditation. It notified SNESL that the school was not in substantial compliance with a number of ABA accreditation standards and expressed concern about the school's compliance with other accreditation standards. Around a month later, Dean Larkin hosted a student meeting at SNESL. Rodi attended. At this meeting, Larkin said SNESL would reapply for provisional accreditation at its next opportunity and, according to Rodi, assured the students that the school had rectified deficiencies in its application. Larkin also promised that the ABA would grant SNESL accreditation, stating, “The school will be accredited by the ABA the next time around and before you graduate.” In the summer of 1998, following his first year at SNESL, Rodi sent transfer applications to Rutgers and Seton Hall law schools. Dean David Prentiss, who had replaced Dean Larkin, received notice of Rodi's interest in transferring. He wrote Rodi a letter asking him to consider carefully whether a transfer was in his best interest. In this letter, Prentiss cited the progress SNESL had made toward achieving ABA accreditation and noted, “[T]here should be no cause for pessimism about the school's ultimate achievement of ABA approval.” Although Rodi received Prentiss's letter, he chose not to withdraw his transfer applications. Both law schools ultimately denied him admission. In November of 1999, during Rodi's third year at SNESL, the ABA's Accreditation Committee rejected SNESL's renewed application for accreditation and did not recommend that SNESL be granted provisional accreditation. During discovery during the instant case, it was revealed that both Dean Larkin and Dean Prentiss had very real concerns throughout the relevant timeframe regarding SNESL's prospects for accreditation.

Three years after he graduated, Rodi sued SNESL, Larkin, and Prentiss in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The district court dismissed that action for want of in personam jurisdiction in 2003. Rodi v. S. New Engl. Sch. of Law, 255 F.Supp.2d 346, 351 (D.N.J.2003). Later, Rodi, acting pro se, sued the same defendants in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Grounding jurisdiction in diversity of citizenship and the existence of a controversy in the requisite amount, his complaint incorporated copies of the Larkin and Prentiss letters. The district court granted a motion to dismiss and ruled, without elaboration, that Rodi failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The First Circuit reversed, in part, and remanded the case for further proceedings after concluding that Rodi alleged a colorable fraudulent misrepresentation claim and that he should be allowed to amend his claim to remedy pleading deficiencies. Rodi v. S. New Engl. Sch. of Law, 389 F.3d 5 (1^st Cir. 2004).

 On remand, Rodi filed a motion for reassignment of judges, claiming that the terms of the remand did not require the original judge to conduct further proceedings and that no substantial savings of time would result if the judge did retain the case. The district judge denied the motion, specifically finding that her familiarity with the case would result in a savings of time. After discovery, the district court granted SNESL's motion for summary judgment on Rodi's fraudulent misrepresentation claim. Although the court questioned whether the deans made false statements of material fact, it concluded that even if they had made such statements, Rodi's reliance was unreasonable as a matter of law. The trial court similarly dispensed with Rodi's consumer protection claim, concluding that Rodi's inability to prove fraudulent misrepresentation sealed that claim's fate. The Court of Appeals affirmed and ruled that, even assuming that Larkin and Prentiss made false statements of material fact for the purpose of inducing Rodi to remain at SNESL, no reasonable jury could find that Rodi relied on their statements, or that his reliance was reasonable. The Court held that, following Larkin’s student meeting, Rodi sent transfer applications to two law schools. Despite Prentiss's letter asking him to reconsider his decision to seek a transfer, Rodi chose not withdraw his applications. Rodi's attempts to transfer to ABA accredited law schools strongly suggested that he did not believe the deans' statements regarding SNESL's prospects for ABA approval. Further, Rodi's failure to offer an explanation for his unyielding pursuit of a transfer was considered by the appellate court to be “damning”. This is because Rodi could have easily offered plausible explanations for both his attempted transfer and his failure to withdraw his applications that would have been technically compatible with his assertion that he relied on Larkin's and Prentiss's statements. Instead, he said nothing and thus failed to undercut the powerful inference that he never relied on what the deans were saying regarding accreditation in the first place. Dean Larkin made two statements: first, that SNESL had rectified the deficiencies in its application that the ABA had identified and second, that the ABA would grant SNESL accreditation before the students graduated. As for Larkin's first statement, it was unreasonable for Rodi to believe that SNESL had remedied accreditation problems significant enough to derail its application in just four weeks. But it was even more unjustified for Rodi to rely on Larkin's second statement promising accreditation before Rodi graduated. The Court ruled:

First, at all times Rodi was attending SNESL, the law school catalogue contained a disclaimer which provided: "The Law School makes no representation to any applicant or student that it will be approved by the American Bar Association prior to the graduation of any matriculating student." Although disclaimers, under Massachusetts law, do not serve as automatic defenses to allegations of fraud…they obviously may be considered when assessing the reasonableness of a party's reliance. The school, through its disclaimer, essentially urged Rodi and other SNESL students to ignore statements such as the one made by Dean Larkin. Second, SNESL's accreditation fate was ultimately in the hands of a third party, the ABA. This is a fact that Rodi and every other SNESL student had squarely confronted when the ABA denied the school's accreditation in August of 1997. Accordingly, Rodi acted unreasonably in crediting Larkin's promise that an entity over which Larkin had no control would do something...Finally, prior to his statement in September of 1997 Larkin had been exposed as a flawed prognosticator. In a letter to Rodi prior to the first denial of accreditation in August of 1997, Larkin wrote that he was "highly confident" that SNESL would gain accreditation in August. Larkin's history of making inaccurate predictions rendered any reliance on his statements unreasonable. As the proverb provides, "fool me once - shame on you, fool me twice - shame on me."

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2The featured case is Joseph Rodi v. Southern New England School of Law, Francis J. Larkin, David M. Prentiss, ___ F.3d ___, No. 07-1770 (1^st Cir. June 30, 2008).

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