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A Butler University student who sued the school after he was found not responsible on an allegation of stalking can proceed with some, but not all, of his breach-of-contract claims.
Senior Judge Sarah Evans Barker of the Indiana Southern District Court issued the order Friday partially granting and partially denying Butler’s motion to dismiss.
On Sept. 15, 2022, the student, known in court documents as John Doe, sued Butler University, alleging breach of contract and unjust enrichment. His complaint came after the school investigated a female student’s allegation that Doe had been stalking her.
At the start of the spring 2021 semester, Doe moved out of his fraternity house and joined a friend in a dorm suite. One night while hanging out in a nearby room, Doe used a friend’s private bathroom, prompting the friend, J.F., to text Doe saying his actions were “so not cool.”
Although Doe apologized and J.F. said it was “OK,” J.F. followed up with a message saying Doe would need to modify his behavior if he wanted to continue hanging out with the friend group.
The situation culminated in a meeting with resident advisers, where the friend group cut off Doe.
Meanwhile, J.F. had filed a formal complaint with the university, alleging that Doe had stalked her in violation of Butler’s sexual misconduct policy.
On March 12, Doe received a formal notice of investigation and a no-contact order barring him from contacting J.F. But after a university investigation and a hearing, Doe was found not responsible for stalking.
In his complaint against the school, Doe identified 12 university policies that Butler’s investigation of the stalking complaint allegedly breached.
The district court dismissed without prejudice the breach-of-contract claims Doe made involving eight of those policies. It also dismissed without prejudice Doe’s unjust enrichment claim because he “erroneously incorporated allegations of the existence of a contract between the parties.”
However, in her order, Barker wrote that Doe identified four policies in his breach claim that satisfied his burden in identifying concrete contractual promises made by the university. Those provisions included:
- “Parties to an investigation will be given access to ‘[a]n appendix containing raw materials gathered in the investigation (e.g., incident reports, documentation submitted by the parties, etc.).’”
- “The Title IX Coordinator will send notice of the date, time, and location of the hearing, as well as the name(s) of the decision-maker(s) to the parties at least fourteen (14) business days prior to the hearing date.”
- “In scheduling the hearing, the Title IX Coordinator will accommodate the parties’ and advisors’ schedules to the extent reasonable.”
- “The decision-maker will be provided a copy of the Final Investigation Report.”
“These four provisions are sufficiently concrete because they describe specific actions that Butler explicitly stated it would take in investigating such cases,” Barker wrote in declining to dismiss the breach claims based on those provisions. “Butler raises, albeit only in passing, that Mr. Doe has not shown any recoverable damages or injuries resulting from Butler’s alleged breaches of these … provisions because Mr. Doe was ultimately found not responsible. At the pleading stage, ‘we do not test the sufficiency of the facts alleged with regards to their adequacy to provide recovery,’ so we need not consider Mr. Doe’s damages at this time.”
Barker added in a footnote that Butler had moved for summary judgment prior to receiving her ruling on the motion to dismiss.
“Assuming Plaintiff chooses to file an amended complaint in light of our decisions and guidance here, the Motion for Summary Judge may require some retooling,” she wrote. “We will enlist the assistance of our able magistrate judge to address these scheduling issues with the parties and get this case back on a workable procedural track headed toward a final and prompt resolution.”
The case is John Doe v. Butler University, 1:22-cv-01828.
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