- Two Republican members of North Carolina's congressional delegation joined 11 GOP legislators and a dozen groups supporting parents in a legal battle at the North Carolina Supreme Court.
- Doug and Nicole Turpin challenge Charlotte Latin's decision to expel two Turpin children in 2021 after Doug Turpin questioned changes in the school's operations.
- A new friend-of-the-court brief in the case urges the high court to allow the Turpins to pursue their case against the school using North Carolina's unfair and deceptive practices law.
Two Republican members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation have joined 11 GOP state legislators and a dozen groups to support parents in a legal battle against a Charlotte private school. The case has reached North Carolina’s highest court.
US Reps. Richard Hudson and Pat Harrigan lead the list of names on an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief filed Thursday at the North Carolina Supreme Court. Parents Doug and Nicole Turpin challenge Charlotte Latin’s decision to expel two Turpin children in 2021 after Doug Turpin questioned changes in the school’s operations.
Lower courts have ruled against the Turpins, including a 2-1 decision from the state Court of Appeals in April 2024.
“When private schools unfairly retaliate against students and their parents, can the schools be held accountable?” lawyer Troy Shelton asked in the friend-of-the-court brief. “That’s where Charlotte Latin broke its promises, smeared the Turpins in public, and expelled the children. If the decision below stands, it grants schools unfettered discretion to engage in such retaliatory conduct, undermining the foundational trust between families and schools in North Carolina.”
The brief from elected officials and interested groups focuses on two issues, Shelton wrote. “First, it examines the inherent unfairness faced by parents and students when private schools expel students under retaliatory or arbitrary circumstances,” he explained. “Second, it advocates for the application of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1 — North Carolina’s unfair and deceptive practices statute — as a vital remedy for safeguarding the commercial relationship between private schools and the families they serve.”
“The Turpins’ ordeal exemplifies the vulnerability of families in private educational settings,” Shelton added. “After following the school’s prescribed channels for dialogue about curricular concerns, the Turpins were met with severe retaliation — their children were summarily expelled and the parents were defamed. The Court of Appeals’ decision absolved Latin from accountability for such conduct by dismissing claims at the pleading stage, before any factual development could occur.”
“Section 75-1.1 of the General Statutes provides an important remedy for this misconduct,” the brief argued. “The relationship between parents and private schools is commercial, involving hefty financial payments and explicit contractual promises. Private schools should not be immune from the law when they engage in unfair or deceptive practices toward the families they serve. Misrepresentations and unfair retaliation, such as experienced by the Turpins, violate the core principle of fair business dealings that section 75-1.1 was designed to guarantee.”
In addition to Hudson and Harrigan, the brief has support from state Sens. Brad Overcash, Dana Jones, Ted Alexander, and Amy Galey. State representatives also have endorsed the brief: David Willis, Celeste Cairns, Grant Campbell, Brian Echevarria, Neal Jackson, Keith Kidwell, and Heather Rhyne.
Doug Turpin’s group Coalition for Liberty is listed as one of 12 organizations supporting the brief. Others are seven local chapters of Moms for Liberty, American Center for Education and Knowledge, Color Us United, Future Prep Educational Services, National School Boards Leadership Council, New Tolerance Campaign, Our Duty USA, Palm Beach Freedom Institute, Patriots Business Alliance, United Families International, and Advocates for Faith and Freedom.
“Doug and Nicole Turpin sent their children … to Charlotte Latin expecting them to flourish,” the parents’ the family’s lawyers wrote in a brief filed April 24. “Instead, Latin expelled them — abruptly, without warning, and without process.”
“The reason? Doug spoke up,” the court filing continued. “He followed the school’s express invitation, and the process set out in its enrollment contract, to raise concerns and did so respectfully, urging a return to the school’s own stated values. For that, Latin severed its relationship with Doug and Nicole, blindsiding the family by expelling their children without warning at a meeting billed merely as a discussion.”
“This case asks whether a private school can invite open dialogue and then expel students in retaliation for their parents’ protected speech — while insisting its contracts grant it unlimited discretion to do so. The answer, under North Carolina law, must be no,” the Turpins’ lawyers argued.
Charlotte Latin is urging the state Supreme Court to keep lower court rulings intact. The North Carolina Association of Independent Schools and Southern Association of Independent Schools filed a brief in June 2024 supporting the school.
Charlotte Latin filed a state Supreme Court brief in May 2024.
“Independent and religious schools are private entities that have the freedom to set their own curriculum and policies,” wrote Charlotte Latin’s lawyers. “Like other businesses in this state, they are service providers competing in an educational marketplace for customers. Parents may choose where to enroll their children, and they do so through contracts which define the parties’ rights and obligations.”
“In the event parents are dissatisfied with a private school’s curriculum and culture, they have the option to enroll their children at a new school that suits their needs,” the court filing continued. “And, if a private school has parents that reject the school’s policies, it likewise may end their relationship.”
The Appeals Court’s April 2024 decision marked the second time appellate judges had ruled against the Turpins. Unlike the first unanimous ruling in January 2024, the second decision split judges, 2-1, and produced three separate opinions.
The Turpins argued that the school violated its contract after the parents raised questions about changes in Charlotte Latin’s focus. The school responded that the Turpins violated provisions of the school’s “parent-school partnership” with ongoing complaints about Charlotte Latin’s operations.
“On appeal, plaintiffs contend that they ‘sufficiently alleged a breach of contract, and the trial court was wrong to conclude otherwise’ because ‘the court ignored the agreement’s plain language and disregarded Latin’s obligation to apply those agreements in good faith.’ We disagree, because the plain and unambiguous language of the enrollment contracts — and pursuant to the enrollment contracts, the Parent-School Partnership — allowed Latin to terminate plaintiffs’ enrollment contracts at Latin’s discretion,” wrote Judge Carolyn Thompson for the court’s majority.
Judge John Arrowood supported Thompson’s majority opinion but wrote a concurrence.
“I agree that plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege a breach of contract because the plain and unambiguous language in the enrollment contracts, which state that ‘the School reserves the right to discontinue enrollment if it concludes that the actions of a parent/guardian make such a relationship impossible or seriously interfere with the School’s mission[,]’ allowed the school to terminate plaintiffs’ 2021 enrollment contracts at its discretion,” Arrowood wrote. “Because I believe that allowing this case, in its current state, to advance further would severely undermine the fundamental right to freely contract in North Carolina, which is a bedrock principle of North Carolina law, I write separately to highlight those concerns.”
“North Carolina ‘recognizes that, unless contrary to public policy or prohibited by statute, freedom of contract is a fundamental constitutional right,’” Arrowood explained. “Thus, absent such policies or prohibitive statutes, it is beyond question that parties can contract as they see fit and that courts must enforce those contracts as written to preserve that fundamental right.
“In my view, these enrollment contracts between a private school and those who wish to attend that school do not violate any public policy, statutory prohibitions, or protections,” the concurring opinion continued. “Therefore, this is a case of basic contract interpretation.”
Thompson and Arrowood are Democrats. Judge Julee Flood, a Republican, dissented from the ruling favoring Charlotte Latin.
“The line between the right to terminate a private contract and a contract breach is sometimes mercurial,” Flood wrote. “While the majority would draw that line at the point at which Plaintiffs were accused of certain behaviors in violation of provisions of their private school enrollment contracts, I conclude that the mandates of a Rule 12(b)(6) review are such that we must decline to draw that line prematurely.”
Rule 12(b)(6) involves testing the legal sufficiency of a complaint.
“Treating the allegations in Plaintiffs’ Complaint as true, and viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs made such allegations that they sufficiently stated a claim for breach of contract,” Flood wrote.
“Although the majority assesses Plaintiffs’ conduct as making impossible a ‘positive, collaborative working relationship between the School[,]’ or alternatively, as ‘seriously interfer[ing] with the School’s mission[,]’ such that Defendants were justified in their termination of Plaintiffs’ enrollment contracts, I conclude that this determination is premature as it necessarily involves findings of fact,” the dissent added.
“It is not within our appellate purview to determine at this stage in the proceeding whether Defendants were justified in their termination of Plaintiffs’ enrollment contracts,” Flood wrote.