VANESSA A. GOURDINE, Psy.D. et al. v. FELICIAN COLLEGE et al.

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-5248-04T35248-04T3

VANESSA A. GOURDINE, Psy.D.

and GREGORY J. CORAM, Psy.D.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

 
FELICIAN COLLEGE and SISTER

PATRICIA A. MORRIS,

Defendants-Respondents.

 

Argued by Telephone May 15, 2006 - Decided August 15, 2006

Before Judges Kestin, Hoens and Seltzer.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen County, Docket No. L-3841-03.

Anthony M. Juliano argued the cause for appellants (Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen, attorneys; Charles X. Gormally, of counsel and on the brief; Mr. Juliano, on the brief).

Russell A. Pepe argued the cause for respondents (Harwood Lloyd, attorneys; Mr. Pepe, of counsel; Paul E. Kiel, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Plaintiffs Vanessa A. Gourdine, Psy.D. and Gregory J. Coram, Psy.D. appeal from the April 29, 2005 order of the Law Division granting summary judgment in favor of defendants Felician College and Sister Patricia A. Morris. We affirm.

The following facts, taken in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, see Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 540 (1995), are derived from the record. Plaintiffs assert that in 1999 they were working as psychologists in private practice. At that time, they received unsolicited materials from Felician College about a program known as the Accelerated Masters in Nursing Earned Doctorate (AMNNED) program. This course of study, also referred to as the Earned Doctorate Accelerated Cohort (EDAC) program, offered its students the opportunity to receive both an undergraduate degree in nursing and a master's degree in nursing within three years.

For plaintiffs, one attractive feature of the AMNNED program was the "one-day-on-campus format," whereby the classes for this program would be held only on Fridays. In addition, although the literature distributed by the college regarding the AMNNED program was silent on the subject, plaintiffs assert that they were also interested in the AMNNED program because representatives of Felician College informed them that graduates would be eligible to sit for the Mental Health Advanced Practice Nurse Certification Test (the "MHAPNC" test). Successful completion of that test would enable them to write prescriptions for psychotropic medications which their existing licenses did not permit. Plaintiffs assert that they relied on these written and oral representations in deciding to apply to the college for this course of study. In the spring of 2000, Felician College accepted plaintiffs into the AMNNED program, pending their completion of certain prerequisite courses.

When plaintiffs began the AMNNED program, it was in its second year of existence. Although the second-year class had an initial enrollment of seven people, by the time classes began, plaintiffs were the only two students remaining. Shortly after plaintiffs began their studies, Felician College changed the class requirement from the original Friday-only format. In addition, after plaintiffs had enrolled in the AMNNED program, they learned that upon graduation they would not be eligible to sit for the MHAPNC test. Rather, they would only be able to sit for the Family and Adult Advanced Practice Exam. Success on that test would not permit them to write prescriptions.

On October 11, 2000, Sister Morris, who was the Vice President for Academic Affairs at the College, sent a letter to plaintiffs advising them that the Friday-only format would be cancelled. Her letter stated:

Because of low enrollment, the College cannot continue to dedicate its resources to the NP program as originally designed for your cohort. As an alternative, you may enroll in the Associate Degree program and pursue your Nursing degree through this route. If you need any assistance with registration, we will be able to facilitate the process.

More specifically, according to Sister Morris, the College had decided to cancel the AMNNED program "based on the financial conditions in the institution, and the necessity of looking at all programs that were not fiscally viable or pedagogically sound." As defendants further note, Sister Morris was authorized to do so, because the Felician College catalog included a policy in which it "reserve[d] the right to withdraw or modify the courses of instruction . . . at any time." The catalog further provided that "[i]nsufficient enrollment for any course or any other substantial reason deemed necessary by the Vice President for Academic Affairs may bring about the cancellation of courses from the semester schedule."

On October 25, 2000, Sister Morris sent plaintiffs a letter that "serve[d] to abrogate the letter of October 11, 2000." On October 26, 2000, Sister Theresa Mary Martin, the President of the College, sent plaintiffs a further letter advising them that the program would continue for the next year, that it would remain a Friday-only format, and that it would continue through February 9, 2001. The letter also, however, advised plaintiffs that continuing the program in this fashion represented "a significant financial burden for the College," which the college was undertaking to "make every reasonable effort to help [plaintiffs] succeed." Sister Martin's letter continued by stating that "[o]ver the coming months, we will explore how your instruction might be continued past this next year."

On December 1, 2000, Felician College informed both the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and the New Jersey Board of Nursing that it would no longer admit students to the generic Master of Science in Nursing program and that it had admitted that program's last student in the fall of 2000. Nevertheless, according to plaintiff Coram, after that time, in January 2001, Dr. Muriel Shore, Dean and Professor of the Division of Health Services, told him that both she and the college supported the programs it offered. Plaintiff Coram believed that this expression of support was a specific representation that the program would continue.

On June 21, 2001, Sister Morris issued a memorandum to students in the AMNNED program informing them that "[a]s a result of diminishing enrollment and concomitant financial considerations, [Felician College] will discontinue the AMNNED program effective August 1, 2001." The memorandum further detailed that Felician College was "most willing to aid you in finding alternatives to complete your studies." Defendants assert that the AMNNED program was not financially viable with only two students. They produced a cost analysis, in which they compared revenue of $18,336 with costs of $16,800, in support of this assertion. Plaintiff Coram, however, certified that Janet Reynolds, liaison and monitor of the AMNNED program at Felician College, told him "that Felician was earning a profit with its AMNNED program, even with only [two] students currently enrolled."

On July 9, 2001, Dr. Shore contacted Bloomfield College in an attempt to place plaintiffs in a comparable program. Eventually, however, Felician College was not successful in its efforts to find another program that would allow plaintiffs to complete the BSN part of their studies on the same schedule as had been promised by the original AMNNED program. Therefore, Felician College advised them that it was "willing to reinstate the program until May 2002[,]" thereby "allow[ing] [plaintiffs] to complete the BSN segment."

Plaintiffs accepted that offer, and received their bachelor's degrees in May 2002. Eventually, Dr. Coram earned a master's degree from Rutgers University that allowed him to prescribe psychotropic medications. As of August 5, 2004, Dr. Gourdine was pursuing her master's degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which would ultimately enable her to prescribe psychotropic medications as well.

In May 2003, plaintiffs filed their three-count complaint seeking compensatory damages from defendants based on theories of breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, and a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act, N.J.S.A. 56:8-1 to -20. Following the completion of discovery, defendants moved for summary judgment on all three counts of the complaint. On April 29, 2005, the motion judge issued his oral opinion granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on all counts and dismissing plaintiffs' complaint.

On appeal, plaintiffs argue that the motion judge improperly dismissed their breach of contract claim against defendants because a contractual relationship exists between students and educational facilities. They contend that the judge improperly dismissed their negligent misrepresentation claim because the Charitable Immunity Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-7 to -11, does not apply to protect defendants from liability. Finally, plaintiffs submit that the judge erred in concluding that the Consumer Fraud Act did not apply to defendants. We disagree and affirm.

Because we here review an order granting summary judgment, we utilize the same standards as are appropriate at the trial court level. We therefore first consider whether the record demonstrates that there was a genuine issue of material fact. See Brill, supra, 142 N.J. at 540. If there are no genuine issues of material fact, we then decide whether the movants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Ibid. In doing so, we are mindful that "[a] trial court's interpretation of the law and the legal consequences that flow from established facts are not entitled to any special deference." Manalapan Realty L.P. v. Manalapan Twp. Comm., 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995)(citations omitted).

The first count in plaintiffs' complaint sounds in breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Plaintiffs assert that the motion judge erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on this count both by failing to recognize that they had raised genuine issues of material fact and in his interpretation as a matter of law.

The question of whether students and a college have a contractual relationship is not novel. In Beukas v. Bd. of Trustees of Farleigh Dickinson Univ., 255 N.J. Super. 552 (Law Div. 1991), aff'd, 255 N.J. Super. 420 (App. Div. 1992), Judge Eichen, then assigned to the Law Division, considered the question of whether the decision by a university to close its dental school created a cause of action in favor of the students then studying in the school. In concluding that the students there did not have an enforceable right, the judge pointed out that the university, in its bulletin describing the programs, had reserved its right to eliminate programs or courses, that the dental school had been closed because of a loss of State funding, and that the university had assisted the students in transferring to other programs, offering a tuition subsidy to certain of those students. Id. at 554-57.

Judge Eichen's analysis was based in part on her conclusion that the relationship between the students and the university was not contractual, but should be tested instead in light of principles of quasi-contract and good faith. Id. at 566. Although on appeal we also addressed the issue, in the alternative, as if it were based on a contract, we concluded that the contract inevitably also included the university's reservations of rights. We therefore affirmed on that alternate ground as well. Beukas, supra, 255 N.J. Super. at 421. More recently, we have reaffirmed the principle that the relationship between a student and a university is not simply a matter to be addressed in terms of contractual rights. See Romeo v. Seton Hall Univ., 378 N.J. Super. 384, 393 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 185 N.J. 295 (2005).

These principles apply to plaintiffs' contract-based claims. To the extent that plaintiffs seek to enforce a contractual right against defendants, that contract includes the college catalog's reservation of rights to alter or to eliminate the program in which they were enrolled. The question of their rights to recover damages, then, as in Beukas, rests on defendants' reasons for the decision to alter or close the program and the manner in which it was accomplished. Regardless of whether we consider these issues as matters to be tested against a quasi-contract, good faith standard, or in terms of the contractual covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the result here is the same. In essence, plaintiffs assert that the judge erred in finding that there was no genuine issue of material fact to be tried concerning defendants' good faith. They point to evidence in the record to the effect that the proffered financial reasons for the closing of the program were false and argue that the judge, in essence, made inappropriate findings of fact. We do not agree with this analysis.

It is a fundamental part of the judge's role in addressing a motion for summary judgment to determine whether the asserted issues of fact are both genuine and material. As the Court held in Brill, where the facts are so one-sided that the movant must prevail as a matter of law, summary judgment is appropriate. Brill, supra, 142 N.J. at 540. Applying this principle to the record on appeal, we conclude, as did the motion judge, that the facts are indeed that one-sided. Defendants produced evidence in the form of sworn testimony from Sister Morris, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and from Dr. Muriel Shore, the Dean of Nursing, that the college faced a significant fiscal crisis, that because plaintiffs were the only students in the AMNNED program, its costs far outpaced their tuition payments, and that the program was therefore considered to be both financially and pedagogically unsound. They produced evidence that plaintiffs were offered assistance in transferring to other programs and that when this became impossible, the BSN portion of the program was continued so that plaintiffs would receive that degree.

In contrast, plaintiffs offered only evidence of a rather optimistic comment made to them by Dr. Shore about the college's support for its programs and a statement attributed to Janet Reynolds to the effect that the college could make money on the AMNNED program even with two students enrolled. The motion judge concluded, and we agree, that these were insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact within the meaning of Brill. In particular, the statement attributed to Dr. Shore was, at most, merely a general expression of support for all of the college's programs. It was not, as plaintiffs suggest, a guarantee or a contractual agreement that the college was obliged to continue to offer any of them. Nor is the comment attributed to Reynolds sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact. The record demonstrates no basis on which to conclude that Reynolds was privy to the financial information needed to legitimately make such a claim. Indeed, as the motion judge noted, it is unreasonable to suggest that a program with two full time faculty members for two students could be financially stable. Moreover, the comment, even if true, does not address the alternate pedagogical reason for discontinuing the program, which remains unchallenged. Taken together, this proffered evidence is insufficient to create a genuine issue of fact when compared to the record defendants relied upon in support of summary judgment.

Nor, for that matter, do we find merit in plaintiffs' argument that Felician College was obligated to offer them tuition rebates or that its efforts to assist them in completing their degrees were so inadequate as to create a cause of action. Although as a matter of fact, in Beukas, the students were, under some circumstances, offered tuition assistance, we do not interpret Beukas to require financial support in exchange for ending a program. Rather, we consider that as an aspect of the manner in which the institution sought to ease the closing of the program that must be considered in the context of whether the institution acted in good faith.

Here, defendants' efforts to find other programs for these plaintiffs, which are documented, were unsuccessful. As a result, however, plaintiffs were permitted to continue with their studies until the completion of their BSN degrees, which enabled them to secure places in other programs as part of achieving their eventual career goals. We perceive no basis in this record to conclude that more was required of defendants in order to discharge their good faith obligation.

Plaintiffs also appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on the negligent misrepresentation count of their complaint. As part of this count, plaintiffs assert that a variety of statements made to them, beginning with the initial, unsolicited advertisements to them describing the program, and continuing through the time when the program was terminated, were actionable. In granting defendants' summary judgment motion, the judge concluded that plaintiffs' negligence claims were barred by the Charitable Immunity Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-7 to -11. On appeal, plaintiffs do not challenge the judge's conclusion that defendants are, in general, protected by the Act. Rather, they argue that they were not beneficiaries of the charity at the time when they received the original advertisements, as a result of which all of the statements they attribute to those advertisements fall outside of the scope of the Act. In particular, they point to two statements. They contend that the description of the Friday-only format was part of the unsolicited brochure and the verbal assurance to them that they would be eligible for the MHAPNC examination was made to them before they enrolled. They assert that they were not beneficiaries of the charity when these statements were made to them, that the statements were misrepresentations, and that they were induced to enroll in reliance on these statements. They therefore contend that the Act does not apply to protect defendants from their claim for misrepresentation.

We reject these assertions on appeal, although for reasons somewhat different than the basis identified by the motion judge. We have held, in similar contexts, that a correct result, even if predicated on an erroneous basis in fact or in law, will not be overturned on appeal. See, e.g., Govito v. West Jersey Health System, 332 N.J. Super. 293, 321 (App. Div. 2000) (judge's erroneous legal reasoning nonetheless produced the correct result); Gerber v. Springfield Bd. of Educ., 328 N.J. Super. 24, 40 (App. Div. 2000) (affirming summary judgment in spite of erroneous reasoning of motion judge); GNOC Corp. v. Dir., Div. of Taxation, 328 N.J. Super. 467, 474 (App. Div. 2000)(holding that an order will be affirmed when correct even if the reasons given by the trial judge were incorrect), aff'd, 167 N.J. 62 (2001). Therefore, although the motion judge's decision did not directly address the significance of the pre-enrollment allegations, that cannot now serve as a basis to overturn an otherwise correct result.

The Act has traditionally received a liberal construction. N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-10; see Monaghan v. Holy Trinity Church, 275 N.J. Super. 594, 598 (App. Div. 1994). The test used to determine beneficiary status is "'whether the institution pleading the immunity . . . was engaged in the performance of the charitable objectives it was organized to advance.'" Loder v. St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church, 295 N.J. Super. 297, 303 (App. Div. 1996) (quoting Anasiewicz v. Sacred Heart Church, 74 N.J. Super. 532, 536 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 38 N.J. 305 (1962)). In Bloom v. Seton Hall University, 307 N.J. Super. 487, 492 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 153 N.J. 405 (1998), we concluded that the Act applies to a university. This court recalled that "the term 'educational' has been broadly interpreted and not limited to purely scholastic activities." Id. at 492. Concluding that defendants, in general, are entitled to the protection of the Act and that, after enrollment, plaintiffs were beneficiaries of defendants' charitable pursuits, however, does not resolve the issue on appeal. Rather, the question to be addressed is whether, in light of the fact that the alleged misrepresentations were made before plaintiffs were beneficiaries of the charity, defendants were nonetheless entitled to summary judgment. We think it plain that they were.

First, the assertion that the original advertisement referred to the one-day weekly format supports a misrepresentation claim must fail in light of the reservation of rights to alter that format included in the course brochure. Plaintiffs' decision to enroll simply cannot have been based on any misunderstanding about the right of the institution to alter the class format, given that they enrolled following their receipt of the brochure.

Second, to the extent that plaintiffs seek to recover because they were allegedly told that the AMNNED program would enable them to sit for the MHAPNC examination and prescribe psychotropic medications, we find no basis for relief. Assuming that they were told that they would be able to sit for that examination, it was in the context of explaining to them the eventual benefits of the joint degree program. Even if the statement about eligibility to sit for that examination were false, plaintiffs would only possibly have sustained damages had they completed that program and been unable to sit for the examination.

Under any circumstances, however, plaintiffs were required to first earn their BSN before they could have earned the appropriate advanced degree. Once the AMNNED program was discontinued, plaintiffs were permitted to earn, and both of them did earn, a BSN degree. As that degree was required for the appropriate advanced degree, and as both eventually elected to pursue the appropriate advanced degree following cessation of the AMNNED program, they cannot demonstrate that they sustained any damage. Rather, defendants provided them with the opportunity to achieve the BSN degree, a necessary prerequisite to the advanced degree that they later secured at other institutions. Therefore, even if the statements in the original unsolicited mailing were false, and even if plaintiffs relied on those statements before enrolling, there is no evidence that plaintiffs were damaged by their reliance on those statements. As a result, their misrepresentation claim must fail.

Finally, plaintiffs appeal from the motion judge's decision granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on Count Three, in which plaintiffs asserted a claim pursuant to the Consumer Fraud Act. In light of the Supreme Court's most recent decision regarding the relationship of this Act to learned professionals who act within their professional capacities, see Macedo v. Dello Russo, 178 N.J. 340, 345-46 (2004), we discern no ground on which to reach a different result than did the motion judge.

Affirmed.

 

Plaintiffs point to other alleged misrepresentations which followed their decision to enroll. We decline to address these assertions in light of the fact any alleged misrepresentation made following their enrollment in the program is barred by the Act because it would have occurred at a time when plaintiffs were enjoying the benefactions of the charity.

(continued)

(continued)

18

A-5248-04T3

 

August 15, 2006