WEST LAFAYETTE – A Purdue senior studying engineering filed a federal lawsuit against the university this week, inviting others to join in, over claims that the West Lafayette campus breached contracts and “unjustly enriched” itself during the coronavirus epidemic by keeping more tuition, fees and room and board that it should have.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, claims the $750 Purdue offered in credits for returning students and refunds for those graduating for time not spent in on-campus university housing didn’t come close to what students actually lost when Purdue converted to online classes and told residence hall students to leave, if they could, after spring break.

“The university’s decision to transition to online classes and to request or encourage students to leave campus were responsible decisions to make,” according to the lawsuit filed by Zachary Church, a senior finishing the spring 2020 semester from home in Michigan.

“But it is unfair and unlawful for (Purdue) to retain full tuition and fees and a disproportionate share of prepaid amounts for on-campus housing and meal costs and fees, effectively passing the losses on to the students and their families,” the 24-page complaint claimed.

Purdue officials weren’t amused.

“It was sadly predictable that some plaintiff’s lawyer would attempt to profit from this unprecedented public health crisis that’s affected us all,” Tim Doty, a Purdue spokesman, said.

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“The suit is baseless and has no chance of ultimate success,” Doty said. “In the meantime, it will be one more minor difficulty among all those we’re currently wrestling with.”

Purdue announced a week before students left for spring break, which started March 14, that there would be no more in-person classrooms, with all courses moving to remote settings the day students returned to campus March 23. Initial attempts to keep the West Lafayette campus open gave way during spring break to ramped up calls for social distancing – including the first of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s stay-at-home executive orders. Purdue asked student who were in a position to leave residence halls to do so.

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Purdue offered $750 for those who left. The university has not offered to refund tuition, as classes continued in online settings.

Church’s suit claims that Purdue students should get something closer to half of the tuition they paid -- $9,992 for in-state students and $28,794 for out-of-state students – and the $10,030 put toward room and board on campus.

The lawsuit asks for “a partial refund of tuition representing the difference in value of a half semester of live in-person instruction versus a half semester of online distance learning” for Church and other students who join the class-action suit.

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Church also asked for a portion of the $2,050 in additional fees required for his engineering major.

“(Church’s) online classes are not commensurate with the same courses being taught in person,” the suit claims. “As a result of (Purdue’s) closure of the university, (Church) is unable to finish his senior year engineering project – constructing an airplane. No online course can simulate the applicable, real-world experience (Church) hoped to gain from completing his senior year project.”

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Attempts to reach Church were not immediately successful.

“COVID-19 has forced everyone to make sacrifices,” Marc Grossman, a managing partner at Milberg Phillips Grossman, the New York-based firm representing Church, said in a prepared statement.

“While school closures were an appropriate response to the coronavirus, Purdue and other schools should not profit at the expense of their students, who deserve to be fairly refunded for services they paid for but didn’t receive,” Grossman said.

As of Friday, Purdue had not filed a formal response in federal court.

Purdue plans to move nearly all of its summer courses online, mirroring the virtual classroom arrangement on the West Lafayette campus since spring break, Provost Jay Akridge wrote in a letter to campus on April 6. Many summer events have been canceled – and others still could be – and student orientation ahead of the fall semester could be affected as Purdue plans with an unfolding coronavirus epidemic in mind.

Purdue President Mitch Daniels assigned a dozen professors, deans and administrators to assess what changes Purdue should make for the fall 2020 semester.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.