Crone, J.
Case Summary
Ball State University student Keller J. Mellowitz filed a putative class-action complaint against Ball State and its board of trustees, asserting claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment based on Ball State’s retention of tuition and fees after it cancelled in-person classes and closed campus facilities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the complaint was filed, the Indiana General Assembly enacted Public Law 166-2021, part of which was later codified as Indiana Code Chapter 34-12-5. Indiana Code Section 34-12-5-7 (Section 7) bars class actions against postsecondary educational institutions for claims of breach of contract and unjust enrichment arising from COVID-19. Ball State filed a motion for relief based on Section 7, and the trial court ordered Mellowitz to file an amended complaint eliminating his class allegations. Mellowitz now appeals, arguing that Section 7 is a procedural statute that impermissibly conflicts with Indiana Trial Rule 23, which governs class-action procedures, and thus Section 7 is a nullity. We agree, and therefore we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
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Mellowitz contends that the trial court erred in granting Ball State’s motion for relief because Section 7 is a procedural statute that impermissibly conflicts with Trial Rule 23. “[W]hen a trial court’s ruling involves a pure question of law, such as the interpretation or constitutionality of a statute, our standard of review is de novo.” Church v. State, 189 N.E.3d 580, 585 (Ind. 2022).
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Trial Rule 23 is a purely procedural rule, and the right to bring a class action is a purely procedural right. See Ind. Trial Rule 1 (“Except as otherwise provided, these rules govern the procedure and practice in all courts of the state of Indiana in all suits of a civil nature whether cognizable as cases at law, in equity, or of statutory origin.”); Ryan v. Ryan, 972 N.E.2d 359, 370 (Ind. 2012) (“Like all of our Trial Rules, Trial Rule 60(B) [which allows a trial court to grant a party relief from a judgment] is a rule of procedure; it does not confer any substantive right on a party that invokes it. While courts sometimes say that Trial Rule 60(B) ‘gives courts equitable power,’ that is not strictly true. Rather, Trial Rule 60(B) gives the court a procedural mechanism to exercise power that it derives from substantive law ….”); see also Deposit Guar. Nat’l Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 332 (1980) (“[T]he right of a litigant to employ [Federal] Rule 23 is a procedural right only, ancillary to the litigation of substantive claims.”). Section 7 is a purely procedural statute, in that it does not affect a plaintiff’s existing substantive right to sue a postsecondary educational institution for breach of contract or unjust enrichment. Instead of furthering judicial administrative objectives, however, it frustrates them by encouraging a multiplicity of lawsuits from similarly situated plaintiffs. In the parlance of our supreme court’s longstanding precedent, Section 7 does not “establish rights and responsibilities[,]” but “merely prescribe[s] the manner in which” a plaintiff’s contractual and quasi-contractual rights “may be exercised and enforced[,]” i.e., individually and not as a representative of a class. Blood, 239 Ind. at 400, 157 N.E.2d at 478. [Footnote omitted.]
Citing Church, Ball State suggests that mandating judicial inefficiency predominantly furthers public policy objectives by protecting Indiana’s postsecondary educational institutions “from widespread legal liability arising out of their efforts to combat and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.” Ball State’s Br. at 21 (citation to appendix omitted). We find this reasoning unpersuasive because, as already mentioned, Section 7 does not abrogate the existing substantive right to sue those institutions for breach of contract or unjust enrichment, so it does not reduce the institutions’ potential legal liability in the slightest. [Footnote omitted.]
Finally, the conflict between the rule and the statute at issue could not be more stark: Trial Rule 23 says that a claimant “may” bring a class action, and Section 7 says that a claimant “may not” do so. Ball State and the State attempt to harmonize the two by noting that Trial Rule 23(D)(4) allows a court to require that pleadings be amended to eliminate class allegations. But Section 7’s blanket prohibition of class actions effectively dictates that a pleading with class allegations may not be filed in the first place. In sum, both Trial Rule 23 and Section 7 “could not apply in a given situation.” Key, 48 N.E.3d at 339. Accordingly, we conclude that Section 7 is a nullity, and therefore we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision. [Footnote omitted.]
Reversed and remanded.
Vaidik, J., and Altice, J., concur.