Legal win for students seeking compensation for covid disruption
700 students at Staffordshire Uni are seeking compensation
Staffordshire students are hoping for a solution after it was ruled compensation CAN be claimed against universities for disruption through Covid.
The High Court says University College London has 8 months to settle student claims before it goes to trial.
This means 700 students at Staffordshire University could now do the same, as well as other institutions across the country.
The defendant university in this case, UCL, had said that the proceedings should not be allowed to go ahead "unless and until" students first completed UCL's own internal complaints procedures, and if that failed, the OIA ombudsman process.
The judge rejected UCL's attempt to mandate such an approach, noting: "some of the Claimants' concerns about the OIA ombudsman scheme are valid " and raising concern "whether UCL and the OIA have sufficient resources to deal with this volume of complaints".
:Students' claims against UCL can now continue in court without them first being required to pursue an OIA complaint.
The judge encouraged UCL to try to settle the claim and has paused the proceedings for a fixed period for that purpose. If the claims are not settled during that period, they will proceed to trial.
UCL says it was following government guidance during the pandemic.