select a court case to report on. The following format will be used to describe the selected court case:
I. Citation
II. Topic
III. Issue
IV. Facts
V. Findings
VI. Reasoning
The report on this case should be clear and concise using at least 300 words as you describe this court case.
Case:
COVID-19 (a variety of cases)
(Home School)
Children’s immediate enrollment in a public school was in their best interest absent
evidence that their mother (mother and father shared joint custody) was competent to
teach them.
D.R.D. v. J.D.D. (N.Y. Sup., 158 N.Y.S.3d 549), November 2, 2021.
The Supreme Court, Monroe County (state of New York) held that absent evidence that
children were obtaining an “age-appropriate schooling or instruction” and that mother had the
pedagogical competence to instruct children, children’s immediate enrollment in public school
was in their best interests, on the order to show cause brought by the children’s father. After
the children’s mother unilaterally decided to home school the children. The mother offered no
evidence of her employment, college degree, experience as a teacher, or any educational training.
Furthermore, the mother provided no evidence for her assertion that mask-wearing required by
the public schools in response to COVID-19 pandemic was unhealthy, there was no evidence
that children participation in school activities or were given such an opportunity. In addition, the
father’s custodial rights were violated.
(Educational Malpractice – university setting)
Student’s claims against university, arising from education moved online in response to
COVID-19, were not barred by educational malpractice doctrine.
Michel v. Yale University (D. Conn., 547 F. Supp. 3d 179), July 7, 2021.
The United States District Court, D. Connecticut stated that student failed to state a
claim for a breach of contract against university (Yale) after the university transitioned from
in-person teaching to virtual instruction (teaching) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The
university undergraduate regulations provided a “suspension provision” which explicitly
reserved the university’s right to temporarily suspend, at its discretion and judgment, its
operations in response to emergencies, specifically citing “public health” concerns being among
emergencies that might require suspension of operation. Thus, the university decided to suspend
in-person education in light of the COVID-19 pandemic which represented an exercise of its
administrative authority as a university, and such authority could not constitute a breach of
authority.
(Health)
Mask mandate generally requires masks in schools to COVID-19 “could not be justified”
under the regulation governing disease control measures.
Corman v. Acting Secretary of Pennsylvania Dept. of Health (Pa., 266 A.3d 452), December 10,
- Note: Many years ago, a relatively old and very experienced school lawyer from Texas
shared with me a very good piece of advice and I have never forgotten it and use it very often):
Watch (be very attentive to) those cases that come out of Pennsylvania!
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that “Mask mandate” requiring most
individuals to wear facial coverings while inside schools as a means of controlling the spread of
COVID-19 could “not be justified under “catchall provision” in regulations governing
disease control measures, directing the Department of Health or local health authority to take
“any other disease control measure” when necessary to protect the public from the spread of infectious diseases. Catchall provision “limit” other available control measures to those
appropriate for surveillance of a disease, which meant continuing scrutiny of all aspects of
occurrence and spread of the disease that were pertinent to effective control. Masks were a
general “prophylactic measure” (preventive measure, treatment, or device) that provided no
means by which scrutinize or closely supervise the occurrence and spread of COVID-19 or any
disease.
