Medical school handbook — suggestions, or legally binding contract?

[Carbamezapine]

Say a school handbook provides specific protections for students. If a faculty from a school continuously violates those protections the handbook mandates, with the student continuously pointing out these violations, and after repeated violations the faculty admits they violated the handbook and stops these harassing actions.

Say the student suffers extremely serious personal and professional consequences because of these repeated violations. Could this be considered in court, either during or after the student graduates?

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[deleted50541]

From experience, unless you've got documentation about said incidents or have involved a mediating third-party, e.g. other faculty or administration officials whom you trust to discuss confidential matters, it's going to be difficult to prove this sort of thing for administrative action, let alone for a lawsuit.

Violating codes of conduct set out in a medical school handbook certainly violates the spirit of the law, but probably not so much the actual letter of the law, whatever that may be.

I'm not saying there's no course of action, but this sort of conduct needs to be brought to the attention of the school's administration as a first step.

 

[Carbamezapine]

It was done BY the administration. There is very clear documentation, including an email that basically says “you can’t do this to me. It says so right here in your handbook. Why are you doing this?”

After a 2 year long battle, the administrator says some gaslighty thint “i’m proud of you for looking through the handbook and standing up for yourself. You are right. We will stop”

 

[Goro]

My understand is that the handbook is a contract, and administration ignoring protocols in the handbook can lead to judgments in favor of the student.

 

[Tenk]

Unless there is physical harm or disability you’re unlikely to get much of anything worthwhile in court. Emotional trauma is rarely worth the time, cost and energy it takes to open a lawsuit.

 

[guytakingboards]

Say a school handbook provides specific protections for students. If a faculty from a school continuously violates those protections the handbook mandates, with the student continuously pointing out these violations, and after repeated violations the faculty admits they violated the handbook and stops these harassing actions.

Say the student suffers extremely serious personal and professional consequences because of these repeated violations. Could this be considered in court, either during or after the student graduates?

Short of the violations being illegal by law I don't see what role the courts could play. Courts aren't going to uphold whatever arbitrary handbook protections the school claims.

In terms of emotional/professional distress, you could sue them in civil court but at best your personal recompense would be financial. No civil court would force that school to fire x person or change y rules. (though the school could decide on their own to take those actions if they lost a civil case).

Know that if you initiate legal proceedings against your medical school, that is pretty much a hard stop on your medical career. Particularly if you haven't graduated yet. That's not meant to downplay what you are going through but its the harsh reality of the medical training paradigm. Most people who initiate legal preceedings against their school/training program don't end up making it though and practicing later on. It's more of a last ditch thing.

 

[mrbreakfast]

The handbook is a behavioral contract. As I understand it, it does not have the same legal standing as a business contract. You have no recourse if there is a violation on their part, other than withdrawing from the program. Also, as noted above, unless there was criminal activity or physical injury you're going to be very hard-pressed to demonstrate actual damages. And "because of X I had to drop out of medical school and couldn't become a doctor" won't fly; medical schools actually have no contractual obligation to assist you in becoming a doctor and are protected even if they actively prevent you from becoming one (by means of expulsion, negative reviews, etc).

In short, there is supreme court-level legal precedent that medical schools can expel students for violations of behavioral code, even if not explicit, as long as the punishment is not arbitrary (other students did the exact same thing and were not punished) or malicious (there is evidence that the motivation of the punishment was to cause personal harm to you). Proving those things is so difficult that I would be surprised if you can find a lawyer to take your case.

 

[operaman]

These can be very nebulous and I’m sure you probably don’t want to share enough detail due to anonymity concerns.

You’d be effectively bring suit for breach of contract and proving damages is going to be tough. Especially if they’ve stopped the behavior and you’re on track to graduate and continue your career, proving to a court how they’ve irreparably damaged you is not easy.

I guess a big question is: what do you want the court to do? If they’ve stopped the behavior already, there’s no need for injunctive relief. If you’ve suffered some kind of measurable damages then maybe you’ve got a shot at some money but after attorney fees and court costs you’d be left with a small fraction of whatever you got. If the wrong was really egregious and you’ve got written proof, you could consider just asking your school directly for whatever you think would be fair. No attorney even needed. They’d probably say no, but you’d be out no money and minimal time.

Generally speaking, the best way to deal with medical school problems is to graduate. Then you can deal with residency problems. Know how to fix those? You get the idea. The risk:benefit of pressing the issue early in training is never in your favor.

Even if you were wronged, the cheapest and most effective solution is usually to move on and let it go.

 

[sloop]

I am not a lawyer, and the following is not legal advice. This is all just for the purposes of discussion.

It might be theoretically possible to bring suit for breach of contract based on an unwillingness to follow policy, but your damages would probably be limited. Although it’s not exactly clear, from your example, what type of violation this is, it’s hard to see what type of damages you might recover from a contract claim, especially if you wind up finishing school and becoming a doctor. Breach of contract cases don’t generally pay punitive damages. It’s all about direct and indirect economic damages. Even if they didn’t follow a policy and technically breached a contract, if you continue to go there, they continue to provide you with a medical education, and then you graduate and live your life as a doctor, it’s hard to think of what your damages would be as a result of the breach.

More commonly, there is a different cause of action, and the documented policies are used as evidence that the school knew or should have known that it had a particular duty. These facts can increase the potential damages or potentially expose the school to punitive damages. For instance, if it is a EEOC/discrimination case, it would very likely come into evidence that the school had non-discrimination policies. In a personal injury liability case, a school’s policies stating that the student has a right to a “safe environment” might become relevant, etc.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

This is not legal advice, and it may depend on where you live (state laws), but here's one blog post:
Handbooks & Handshakes: N.C. Court Finds Student Handbook Not a Contract

And a legal advisory (not legal advice):

https://schoollaw.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/503.pdf