Uni student sues after flunking out
A QUEENSLAND university student wants a whopping $14 million in compensation after he flunked key subjects to qualify for a law degree, claiming he was discriminated against for having autism.
Dylan Prider, a dual Australian-US citizen living in ritzy Newport Beach, south of LA in the famed Orange County, has asked the Federal Court to force Bond University to erase the subjects he failed from his record and re-enrol him in a Commerce-Law degree.
If he can’t be reinstated, the 20-year-old wants the court to order he be paid $13.6m in damages for loss of income, based on claims he could earn $US189,150 a year in Anaheim, California once qualified as a lawyer.
It is understood to be one of the largest lawsuits lodged against an Australian university over failed grades.
Speaking to the Bulletin from his home in the OC, Prider said he chose to study law in Australia to follow in the footsteps of his lawyer father, because it’s “easier to get into” university in Australia than in the US.
“It certainly hurts my future by not being able to continue in the course,” Prider said.
He said his life is on hold until the court case is over because no other university will take him because his grade point average at Bond was so low.
“Law opens up a lot of opportunities in life, I might not end up becoming a lawyer , I don’t know for certain yet,” he said.
Prider’s case is against the university, its staff and its chancellor – which is former Federal Court judge Annabelle Bennett.
He alleges they discriminated against him because of his autism and ADHD, then “retaliated” against him for complaining to the Australian Human Rights Commission by blocking his enrolment in the law degree.
The university denies all the allegations.
Prider failed one subject in his pre-university course, a diploma of legal studies, and two subjects of the Bachelor of Commerce in 2018, causing the university to deny him entry to a combined Commerce-Law degree in 2019, court documents state.
He argues the university failed to fulfil its promise to him that he would be “preaccepted” into the law degree by completing the diploma course.
Prider, who is represented by his father Ian, a commercial lawyer in Sydney and the US, claims in court documents that he felt “offended, intimidated and distressed” when a university staffer put him on academic warning for failing subjects in 2018.
He argues the university denied him special treatment he needed, such as 20 minutes extra time per hour for exams, “extra time” for assignments, preferential seating and to sit his exams in a separate room to his classmates.
He has asked the court to force the university to cater for disabled students through issuing a “mandatory injunction”.
He also argues that the university promised him it would provide “reasonable adjustments” to help him complete his studies.
Prider tried to sue the university for breach of contract in the Supreme Court, but the case was transferred to the Federal Court last month.
The university states in its defence, filed in the Supreme Court, that Prider’s failure of three subjects “indicates a high likelihood that Mr Prider does not have the academic preparation necessary to allow him to complete an LLB (Bachelor of Laws) in the usual number of semesters of study, as a real possibility or at all”.
The university has not filed a defence to the claims in the Federal Court, and the case is due back in court on September 19 before Justice Darryl Rangiah.