Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Organizations rights on refunding registration fees

As past president of a Little League, I've dealt with this situation (refunds, that is, not a coach who went out of his way to encourage people to drop out. (although we certainly had plenty of other issues with coaches)

The registration form should be a contract. If it had language about refunds, that would determine whether the dropout would be entitled to a refund.

Obviously there's good reasons to keep the money. You probably bought equipment, made up schedules, etc., based on the enrollment.

However, our league would often give refunds on a case-by-case basis, as a matter of goodwill, if there was a good reason. Although this coach's actions are not a very good reason (and if it was a business setting, could actually get him in trouble for intentional interference with contractual relations), on the other hand, if these people enrolled based on an expectation that he'd be coaching and wanted to be on his squad, then they may have a reasonable position.

As a practical matter, we usually had more of a problem finding space for late enrollments than dropouts (but that's another story). So it didn't really hurt us to give refunds.

Re: Organizations rights on refunding registration fees

Whether or not you have to refund the fees depends on several things. No one can tell you if your registration form constitutes a contract and whether that means you do, or do not, have to refund without knowing exactly what it says. There are also other factors to consider relating to whether or not the registrants were promised something (or someone) in particular (explicitly or implicitly) that they will now not get.