⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Ninth Circuit considers tuition-refund claims after Pepperdine moved classes online during the pandemic. Students enrolled in on-campus programs in spring 2020 say they paid for in-person teaching and campus access that they did not receive for the rest of the term. They sought partial tuition and fee refunds. Their breach-of-contract theories were dismissed, but quasi-contract restitution and a California unfair-business-practices claim continued. Here, restitution seeks repayment of tuition the students say is unjust for the university to keep. The university now seeks an interlocutory appeal: review before the remaining claims reach final judgment. The statute requires a controlling question of law, substantial grounds for disagreement, and a prospect that immediate review will materially help bring the case to an end. Believing the trial judge was wrong is not, by itself, enough. The underlying dispute concerns a specific promise of in-person teaching. An implied-in-fact contract is an agreement whose existence and terms are inferred from conduct, rather than simply stated in express words. Pepperdine will argue that California's tuition-refund decisions require a clear and unequivocal promise that is missing here. The students will argue that those cases apply one consistent contract standard to different records, not an unsettled legal rule warranting early review. De novo, another term you will hear, means reviewing a legal question afresh. The judges will separate whether the university should have won below from whether they should decide that question now.

Pinzon, et al. v. Pepperdine University (No. 25-7369) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 19, 2026.