University of Minnesota could pay more than $3M to end lawsuit over student fees

The University of Minnesota is poised to pay more than $3 million to settle a lawsuit challenging whether students should have received larger reimbursements after campus shut down during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hennepin County Judge Laurie J. Miller gave preliminary approval Thursday to a deal that would require the state's flagship university to pay $3.25 million to students who were enrolled in the spring of 2020, plus roughly $110,000 in fees to cover the costs of processing checks. Students now have three months to decide whether they want to accept the deal or object to it.

"This would have been up for grabs at trial," Miller said, noting that few other cases had touched on the same issues, making it was difficult to predict who would have won.

In March 2020, when officials were beginning to declare COVID-19 emergencies in the United States, the university moved to online classes and instructed students to move out of campus housing. The university announced it would refund students $1,200 for unused housing and dining fees.

Two students — Steven Staubus and Patrick Hyatte — sued. Their attorneys argued in court fillings that the university's reimbursement was "woefully inadequate," noting that students had also paid mandatory fees for other services and facilities they weren't able to access for nine of the 16 weeks of the semester.

If the deal receives final approval later this year, attorneys estimate that more than 54,000 students will receive checks of $38 to $40 each, after attorneys' fees and other costs are deducted from the settlement fund.

"We were also at risk of receiving zero. We do think it's fair, and we do think it's reasonable," Catherine Mitchell, an attorney representing the students, told the judge Thursday morning.

Tim Pramas, an attorney for the university, said he would reserve most of his comments for a Dec. 1 hearing, at which the judge is expected to decide whether she'll give final approval to the deal.

The university wrote in court documents that it denied any wrongdoing but wanted to settle the case to "avoid the expense, risk, exposure, inconvenience, and distraction of continued litigation."