Howard Medical Student’s Bias Suit Revived Under New Time Limit

Howard University College of Medicine must face an expelled student’s claims that he was denied accommodation for his test-taking anxiety, the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday.

The court cited its December 2022 decision that the District of Columbia’s three-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims applies to lawsuits brought under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was necessary to look to D.C. law to determine the former Howard student’s deadline for suing under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, because—like Title VI—those laws don’t contain their own statute of limitations, the court said.

The ADA and Rehabilitation Act are federal civil rights laws, just like Title VI, so the rationale of Stafford v. George Washington University likewise applies to Pablo Abreu’s disability discrimination claims, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said. As a result, Abreu’s ADA and Rehabilitation Act allegations were improperly dismissed under a one-year time limit, it said.

Stafford was issued after the lower court granted Howard’s motion to dismiss, Judge Judith W. Rogers said. The lower court relied on the circuit’s prior ruling in Jaiyeola v. District of Columbia, an discrimination lawsuit that borrowed and applied the District of Columbia Human Rights Act’s one-year statute of limitation to an employee’s disability bias suit, Rogers said.

But the circuit held in Stafford that Jaiyeola conflicts with a pair of US Supreme Court cases, the judge said. A personal injury tort is the sole analogue that can cover the diverse causes of action under, and serve the broad purposes of, federal civil rights laws, she said in partly reviving Abreu’s lawsuit.

According to Abreu, he was wrongly expelled for failing to timely pass an examination required for students who have completed their sophomore year of medical school to advance to the third year. He was diagnosed with a severe test-taking anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder while on approved leave to attend an “intensive preparatory program” to ready him to retake the exam after he had failed it a first time, Abreu said.

He was granted a further extension of time to take the exam following his diagnosis, but ultimately failed the test again, Rogers said. Howard later granted Abreu one last chance to take the exam, a second leave of absence from school, and a one-year extension of the time to pass. He retook the test roughly three weeks after the new deadline passed, failed again, and was expelled, she said

The lower court didn’t address the university’s alternate argument that his allegations fail to state a claim under the ADA or Rehabilitation Act and it must take up that issue on remand, Rogers said.

Howard was properly granted dismissal of Abreu’s breach-of-contract claims based on the university’s policies and procedures, the D.C. Circuit said.

Judges Robert L. Wilkins and Gregory G. Katsas joined the opinion.

Stewart Lee Karlin Law Group PC represents Abreu. Morris, Manning & Martin LLP represents the university.

The case is Abreu v. Howard Univ., D.C. Cir., No. 22-07103, 2/23/24.