Roberson v. HCI

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On December 2, 2022, a group of nursing students at Florida’s Health Careers Institute (HCI College) filed a lawsuit against the for-profit school for a deliberate scheme to block the vast majority of students from graduating and taking the RN licensing exam (NCLEX), for misrepresenting its accreditation status and NCLEX passage rates, and for engaging in racial targeting. The plaintiffs amended their complaint in January 2023, adding HCI’s parent company, Florian Education Investors LLC, and HCI’s chairman, Steven W. Hart, as defendants.

On January 13, 2024, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint in its entirety, allowing all claims against all defendants to move forward.

The plaintiffs filed their motion for class certification, asking the district court to allow them to represent all similarly situated individuals, on April 5, 2024.

About Roberson v. HCI

  • On December 2, 2022,  a group of nursing students at Florida’s Health Careers Institute (HCI College) filed a lawsuit against the for-profit school for a deliberate scheme to block the vast majority of students from graduating and taking the RN licensing exam (NCLEX), for misrepresenting its accreditation status and NCLEX passage rates, and for engaging in racial targeting.

    Brought by five named plaintiffs on behalf of over one thousand HCI College students, the lawsuit asks to have students’ loans canceled and payments refunded and seeks an injunction to require HCI to allow all students who completed all stated graduation requirements to take the NCLEX exam.

    • December 2, 2022: Plaintiffs filed their complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach, Florida.

    • February 21, 2023: Plaintiffs filed their amended complaint, adding HCI’s parent company, Florian Education Investors LLC, and HCI’s chairman, Steven W. Hart, as defendants.

    • April 14, 2023: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moved for, and the district court granted, leave to file a statement of interest in support of Plaintiffs.

    • August 3, 2023: The district court issued an order granting in part and denying in part Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ amended complaint and granting Plaintiffs’ leave to file a second amended complaint.

    • August 31, 2023: Plaintiffs filed their second amended complaint.

    • December 13, 2023: The magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court deny Defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint in its entirety.

    • December 19, 2023: Plaintiffs filed their motion for class certification.

    • January 13, 2024: The district court issued an order adopting the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint in its entirety.

    • February 2, 2024: The district court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification without prejudice and with leave to refile so that Plaintiffs could incorporate documents that the magistrate judge ordered Defendants to produce.

    • April 5, 2024: Plaintiffs filed their renewed motion for class certification.

  • After being put on probation in 2018 and 2019 for having very low NCLEX passage rates that did not meet Florida state law for nursing programs, and after failing to attain programmatic accreditation, HCI, rather than investing in improving its education programs, cheated the system so it could continue to enroll students under a separate state identification number, without disclosing its probation and accreditation status. It then enacted a scheme to keep the vast majority of students from taking the NCLEX exam — unfairly dropping them from the program or forcing them to pay to retake classes that were not transferable — in order to inflate the NCLEX passage rates that it used to lure students into its program under false pretenses.

“The reason I chose HCI was because they said it was made for working adults. What you don’t know going in is that they are setting you up to fail — it’s all sunshine and butterflies until you sign on the dotted line,” said plaintiff Rebecca Freeman. “Other schools are in it for student success. They have tutoring, staffing, clinicals. HCI does not have student success at heart, they have making money at heart. I made A’s every semester and on predictor tests, then they change the benchmark for the exit exam and you fail. I want to sit for my boards. That is what I’m owed.”