Given a bad grade? Sue!
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.
We’ve all been there.
For the past 14 weeks, you’ve been attending every class, group study, and tutorial known to man.
You’re nursing perpetual eye bags from back-to-back overnights, and your social life is practically non-existent.
Exams come around and you march into the hall, ready for war. You’re armed with 14 weeks’ worth of cases, statutes, and past questions.
You’ve got this.
Heck, you even collect multiple extra sheets and still finish each paper with time to spare.
But a few months later, results are out, and you see a grade that scares the scholar out of you.
“Nope, this can’t be mine”, you say.
The disbelief is so real that you check again, but this time with a ruler.
Same grade!
Your worth has been challenged. Your honour? Defaced. Your right? Infringed. You’re not going to sit there and cry about it! You’re a budding lawyer for crying out loud, or did you forget?
Oya repeat after me: where there’s a right, there’s a remedy, and if they won’t remedy it, sue them!
It’s a great idea, or at least that’s what Faiz Siddiqui, solicitor and former student of Oxford University, thought when he sued the school for giving him an “embarrassing” grade.
Siddiqui claimed that when he was still a student at Oxford University and taking an elective called Indian Imperial History, the teaching was so “negligent,” “appallingly bad,” and “objectively unacceptable” that it caused him to get a B grade instead of the A that he deserved.
His claim was based on the fact that while he took the course, four of the seven faculty members assigned to teach the course were on sabbatical, so the brunt of the work fell on the remaining three.
He argued that this grave injustice was so detrimental to his life and career that 16 years later he’s still feeling the effects. In his words, it has “denied him the chance of becoming a high-flying commercial barrister” and he demanded the sum of £1 million as compensation for the loss of earnings he suffered.
Did you hear that? 1 million pounds. That’s half a billion in Naira, for a “bad” grade.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Unfair grades? Absent lecturers? I have tons of those. How do you file a court action again?
Hold your horses, cowboy. Siddiqui didn’t actually succeed in his case. In fact, it was thrown out of court, mainly because of this tricky concept called causation.
Causation means that there must be a causal relationship between the defendant’s conduct and the result, and it is often established by the but-for test. E.g., But for their negligent teaching, Siddiqui would have gotten an A.
But that’s only one half of the story because there’s still the concept of legal causation which is a lot harder to prove.
Here’s the deal. For Siddiqui’s claim to succeed, he had to prove in fact and law:
· That the poor teaching at Oxford caused his bad grades
· That his bad grades caused him to miss out on becoming a high-flying commercial barrister
Siddiqui failed at both. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered, which is why we’ve brainstormed a few ideas that will guarantee your success when you inevitably take your faculty to court.
1. Challenge Your Lecturers
Before they tell you that by keeping silent you have indirectly waived your right and you are estopped from insisting on the strict performance of duty.
2. Gather evidence
What do you think all those people recording classes are doing? You think they were so impressed by the lecture that they just have to listen again? Better wake up! They’re gathering evidence they’ll use to support their case in court. Better go and beg them for class recordings
3. Develop PTSD
This one is for when they’re calculating damages, and the best part is that it isn’t really that hard to do. Spend 5 years in the faculty and they’ll hand it to you along with your certificate.
Well, there you have it. Don’t say we never did nothing for you, and when you cash out big, don’t forget where all that great advice came from.
But until then, if anyone asks, the whole thing was your idea. Got it?
