March 23, 2015
On March 24, 2015, the District Court of New Jersey granted summary judgment in favor of the firm’s clients, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and its Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The Court dismissed all of the claims brought against the defendants by a former Rutgers Medical School student, plaintiff Sarin Kadakia.
Kadakia claimed that the defendants failed to afford him adequate procedural and substantive due process when he was dismissed from the Medical School for academic reasons, but the Court disagreed. After a painstaking review of the pretrial record, the Court held that “Plaintiff was afforded numerous opportunities to be heard beyond constitutionally required” due process. The Court held that the defendants satisfied procedural due process requirements because they gave Kadakia “more than adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard.” Furthermore, based on the evidence presented by the defendants, the Court determined that plaintiff’s substantive due process claims could not overcome summary judgment because the defendants’ decision to dismiss Kadakia was legitimately based on his “continuous and obvious academic difficulties.”
As a result of extensive discovery, including interrogatories, document requests and depositions, our attorneys were able to accumulate an abundance of evidence to prove that the defendants fully complied with their constitutional obligations in dismissing plaintiff from the Medical School. Our clients’ defense was led by Saiber Managing Member, William F. Maderer.
