U. of Mich. fights $1.72M verdict for ex-student
Four faculty members at the University of Michigan dental school blame a judge for a $1.72 million verdict for a former student who claimed she was illegally dismissed from school.
They have asked for a new trial or at least a reduction in the jury's award, calling the $1 million in punitive damages "grossly excessive" and $500,000 for emotional distress "a miscarriage of justice."
Alissa Zwick, 30, was dismissed from the dental school in 2005 after her third year. She was told she wasn't performing well in clinical classes and was unfit for dentistry.
Zwick, however, claimed she lost her spot because of a feud between an associate dean, Dr. Marilyn Lantz, and two professors. On Dec. 2 a jury agreed that her due-process rights were violated.
In a Dec. 18 court filing, lawyers for Lantz and three other defendants — Drs. Bill Piskorowski, Mark Snyder and Fred Burgett — said key rulings on evidence and jury instructions swayed jurors in Zwick's favor.
They said U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani allowed "irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial" evidence about other students' grades. They also accuse the judge of allowing jurors to subjectively determine if the dismissal was fair.
Battani will hear arguments on Feb. 11. It's the first step if the university wants to pursue an appeal.
"These motions are standard operating procedure, but there's a bigger point here: These are people who are flat-out refusing to take responsibility for anything," Zwick's lawyer, Deborah Gordon, said Tuesday.
Zwick now is pursuing a master's degree in speech pathology at Eastern Michigan University.
