Expelled California Western Law Student Wins State Court Appeal

California Western School of Law failed to follow its own disciplinary procedures when it expelled a student for allegedly sending inappropriate emails from fellow students’ accounts without their permission, a state appeals court said.

In two incidents in the 2017-18 school year, a number of sexual, racist, and otherwise inappropriate emails were sent from the accounts of students who purportedly failed to log out of campus computers. The perpetrator also printed hundreds of pages of study materials and other documents that were charged to the account holders.

The school conducted an investigation and identified Christopher Teacher as a suspect. A panel of the school’s professional responsibility committee held a hearing after which it recommended Teacher’s expulsion, which the school carried out.

Teacher sought a writ of administrative mandate from a state court, challenging the procedures that CWSL followed. A lower court wrongly denied the writ, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, said Tuesday.

California Western’s disciplinary procedures expressly provide that an accused student or their representative shall have the right to cross-examine witnesses, but the school didn’t provide Teacher the chance to question any of the witnesses on whose statements it relied, the court said.

The court added that “we do not reach any conclusion as to Teacher’s commission of the misconduct that CWSL alleges.” It said the trial court should next consider the school’s affirmative defense of “unclean hands,” based on Teacher allegedly providing false information on his law school application.

The opinion was written by Justice Cynthia Aaron and joined by Justices William Dato and Truc T. Do.

Hathaway Parker represents Teacher. Paul, Plevin, Sullivan & Connaughton LLP represents California Western.

The case is Teacher v. Cal. W. Sch. of Law, Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., No. D078550, 4/5/22.