INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that a trial court’s decision claiming a state law preventing class action lawsuits against covered entities like universities for losses arising from the COVID-19 pandemic was constitutional.
This case arose after a Ball State student had switched to online-only instruction for the 2020 semester due to the pandemic.
Previous reports showed student Keller Melowitz objected claiming he’d paid student activity fees, tuition for in-person classes and that he wasn’t getting reimbursed for the semester.
Mellowitz then sued.
In April of 2021, Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law House Enrolled Act 1002 (Section 7). A portion of that new law retroactively banned class action lawsuits against a “covered entity” which included “state educational institutions”.
In response to the new law, Mellowitz’s attorneys then filed an appeal with the Indiana Court of Appeals.
In October 2022, three appeals court judges agreed that the portion of the new law providing class action protection to state schools was a “nullity”, voided. The action was because the law conflicted with long-established court rules.
The judge ordered that the class action suit should proceed because the class action restriction was unconstitutional.
The state’s Supreme Court then granted a transfer which vacated the Court of Appeals opinion and affirmed the trial court’s order.
In the Indiana Supreme Court’s nearly 25-page ruling, justices stated that the law didn’t violate the constitutional separation of powers because of its limited scope “applying only to a narrow category of claims arising from COVID-19 against a defined group of defendants during a narrow period of time.”
Justices added that secondly, the law didn’t unconstitutionally take Mellowitz’s property without just compensation because he had no property right to sue on behalf of others “through a class action.”
The court wrapped its ruling by stating that the law didn’t unconstitutionally impair the student’s contract with the university because the General Assembly didn’t relieve Ball State of its contractual obligations to Mellowitz.
The trial court’s ruling that Mellowitz was permitted to pursue individual claims against the university was upheld.
The full 22-page ruling from the Indiana Supreme Court is below:
