Supreme Court Digest: Nov. 6, 2019.

Byline: Minnesota Lawyer

Civil

Attorney General

Consumer Fraud

The attorney general, on behalf of the State of Minnesota, sued two for-profit universities, respondents, alleging that the schools misled prospective students about the value of criminal justice degrees offered by the schools. The attorney general invoked his parens patriae power and statutory authority under Minn. Stat. 8.31, subd. 3a, to pursue violations of the Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act (MCFA) and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). The parties agreed that, to prevail, the Attorney General had to establish a "causal nexus" between the schools' uncontested violations of the MCFA and the harm suffered by the students who entered the schools' criminal justice program seeking to become police and probation officers. But the parties disagreed about the showing required to prove a causal nexus. The Court of Appeals held that the evidence in the record supported the district court's finding that the Attorney General established a causal nexus between the schools' wrongful conduct and the harm identified by testifying students but failed to establish a causal nexus as to nontestifying students. Accordingly, at issue here was what the Attorney General must show to establish a causal nexus and whether the Attorney General met that burden in this case.

The Supreme Court held, first, that in a case brought by the attorney general under Minn. Stat. 8.31, subd. 3a, and his parens patriae power, a causal nexus under the MCFA between fraudulent and misleading statements and harm caused to consumers may be established without proof of direct evidence of reliance by each consumer. Evidence showing longstanding, pervasive, and widespread false statements about the nature of a product, that those statements were made with an intent to induce...