Background
University of South Carolina undergraduates Davia Bunch and Casey Kelly brought a proposed class action seeking refunds after USC moved the final six weeks of the spring 2020 semester online in response to COVID-19. They alleged that registration materials, tuition and fee payments, and USC’s ordinary course of dealing formed a contract for in-person instruction and access to campus services. The circuit court entered summary judgment for USC.
The students pursued contract and equitable theories. They argued that the difference between USC’s online and in-person tuition pricing showed that face-to-face education carried a distinct value. They also sought repayment of student activity, laboratory, health, transportation, and other fees. USC answered that no identified term guaranteed a particular delivery method, that it continued instruction and awarded credit, and that sovereign immunity barred equitable recovery against the university.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It found no express contractual promise that every course would remain in person. General references to campus life and USC’s pre-pandemic practices did not create a sufficiently definite term requiring face-to-face instruction regardless of an emergency. The court also declined to turn the case into a judicial assessment of the comparative quality of online and classroom education.
Even assuming a viable contract theory, the students failed to create a genuine dispute over damages. They completed the semester, received academic credit, and offered no nonspeculative method for valuing the asserted difference in instruction. The fact that USC historically charged different prices for some online programs did not establish the value of six weeks of emergency remote instruction in these courses.
The fee claims failed for a similar evidentiary reason. The record did not establish what each fee purchased or show that USC withheld the promised benefit. A campus closure alone could not support an inference that every fee was unearned. The court also held sovereign immunity barred the equitable claims and found the students’ nominal-damages argument unpreserved because it was first raised on appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A university’s publications and past practices do not necessarily create an enforceable promise of uninterrupted in-person instruction.
- A contract plaintiff opposing summary judgment must offer a concrete damages theory, not simply point to different pricing elsewhere.
- Fee-refund claims require evidence connecting each charge to a specific promised service that was not provided.
Why It Matters
The published ruling gives South Carolina institutions and students their clearest state appellate guidance on pandemic-era education claims. The decision turns on ordinary contract formation and proof of damages, not a blanket rule that tuition disputes can never proceed. Institutions should still draft enrollment terms and emergency policies precisely; claimants must identify an actual promise and quantify the value allegedly withheld.
The opinion also has broader summary-judgment significance. A plaintiff cannot rely on the intuitive proposition that two modes of service differ in value. Counsel must develop admissible evidence explaining the bargain, the breach, and a reasonable measure of loss. For public institutions, sovereign immunity creates an additional obstacle to restitutionary theories that attempt to repackage the same dispute outside contract.