Could Students Sue York, Part Deux

A couple of days ago, I did a quick entry pondering the question of whether students could sue York in a class action as a result of the strike. I expressed doubt that such a lawsuit would have any merit, but admittedly, I did not spend any time researching the question. Thankfully, others have done so. Here is a nice post by the people at SLAW citing a 2000 decision (Ciano v York) of Winkler J. dismissing a class action suit on a non-suit motion by a York student making a similar claim arising from an earlier strike by YUFA, the faculty union.
The main basis for the dismissal of the lawsuit (without a trial) was that the student couldn’t show he suffered any damages, since the university made up the term. My favorite part of the ruling is Winkler’s suspicion about whether ‘instructional time’ has any value. Winkler ruled that: “There is no evidence that [the student] suffered any disadvantage other than his assertion that he did not receive the full extent of the instruction that he says he paid for.” According to Winkler, that did not amount to any damage in contract law.
On the question of whether the contract between student and university includes a clause protecting the university from damages claimed as a result of a strike by its employees, the University cited a clause in the undergrad calendar which states: “York shall incur no liability for loss or damage suffered or incurred by any student or third party as a result of delays in or termination of services, courses or classes by reason of: … strikes”
Judge Winkler ruled that it would require a trial to sort out if that clause was part of the contract. So there remains a valid question of whether a student’s contract with a university includes a clause excusing the university from performance in the event of a strike. If York was smart, it would have added such a clause in the ‘contract’ explicitly after this ruling. I don’t know if it did that.