No. 20-1408

Keith Fernandez v. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, et al.

Lower Court: Third Circuit
Docketed: 2021-04-07
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: 12(b)(6)-dismissal academic-fellowship breach-of-contract civil-procedure civil-rights contract discrimination due-process education ethnicity-discrimination federal-precedent standing
Key Terms:
Privacy
Latest Conference: 2021-05-13
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Breach-of-contract-and-ethnicity-discrimination

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED FOR REVIEW Petitioner is a graduate of Harvard College with an Honorary Degree in Economics and Wharton Business School with his M.B.A. in Finance. He filed Suit against Wharton Business School in 2019 in the Eastern. District of Pennsylvania for Breach of : . Contract and Ethnicity Discrimination related to the awarding of the Academic Excellence Fellowship for : 2018. This Fellowship is awarded to the student or students with the highest cumulative GPA during their second and third semesters of the MBA program. ; : During the awarding of the Fellowship, the . . Petitioner became suspicious of the behavior of ; Wharton Administrators. They told the Petitioner in an email that two students had a .01 higher GPA and that he would not be receiving the Fellowship. They ; intentionally stalned the Petitioner, were acting _ evasively and refused to provide the Petitioner with corroborating information or further detail on the : awarding of the Fellowship. . The Petitioner later became aware, through ; informal discovery on the two winning recipients, that _ Wharton administrators were lying and covering up defrauding the Petitioner by awarding the Valedictorian Scholarship to a student or students . : ; with the same and/or lower GPAs than the Petitioner. . . ii Due to the unethical and illegal behavior of the . Wharton Administrators, the Petitioner filed Suit | against Wharton Business School for Breach of ; Contract and Ethnicity Discrimination in violation of 42 U.S. Code § Section 1981. . Despite fulfilling all prosecutorial obligations, ; the Suit was suspiciously dismissed in the Eastern _ District of Pennsylvania by the Judge right before the Petitioner was scheduled to conduct discovery. The . . staff to the Judge wrote an email to the Petitioner telling him that he would be allowed to conduct : : discovery and that a case management date would be scheduled. At the very last minute, the Judge dismissed the Petitioner’s suit with prejudice right before discovery was scheduled to take place. Numerous federal case precedent has been set ; establishing that a student enters into a contractual relationship with a College or University upon the ; ; implicit exchange of money for contractual educational services.“ Despite this, the judge made , . an erroneous ruling on this matter in his Order : dismissing the case with prejudice preventing the Plaintiff from even conducting discovery. ; () See Reynolds v. The University of Pennsylvania, 684 F. : Supp. 2d 621 (ED. Pa. 2010); Gally v. Columbia University, 22 F.Supp.2d 199, 206 (S.D.N.Y. 1998); Chira . v. Columbia University, 289 F-Supp. 2d 477, 485-86 ; (8.D.N.Y. 2003); Peretti v. Montana, 464 F. Supp. 784 (D. ' Mont. 1979. iii . In Reynolds v. The University of Pennsylvania, a close precedent, the Plaintiff prevailed on a breach of contract claim for even less aggressive and more indirect misconduct by the University with egregious evidence of the Plaintiff even falsifying evidence and documents presented in discovery. For some reason, in Fernandez v. The Wharton School, Fernandez wasn’t even allowed to conduct discovery, even with this Reynolds precedent in place. ; Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a Court may dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim. However, as established in Jiri Pik v. University of Pennsylvania ® «dismissal is a harsh remedy and should only be resorted to in extreme cases.” Even in this Pik precedent, the Plaintiff was able to conduct discovery and his Complaint was only dismissed for flagrant violations of the Poulis © precedent, including the Plaintiff not even showing up for . scheduled discovery. : ; For some reason, despite all of this federal — ‘ ; precedent, including favorable precedent established . in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the ; same University system, /ernandez was still not even allowed to conduct discovery in his Case. ) Jiri Pik v. The University of Pennsylvania, No. 08-6164 (ED Pa. 2011). (3)

Docket Entries

2021-05-17
Petition DENIED.
2021-04-27
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/13/2021.
2021-04-22
Waiver of right of respondent Wharton School, et al. to respond filed.
2021-03-30
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 7, 2021)

Attorneys

Keith Fernandez
Keith Fernandez — Petitioner
Keith Fernandez — Petitioner
Wharton School, et al.
James Andrew KellerSaul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, Respondent
James Andrew KellerSaul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, Respondent