United States Court of AppealsFor the First CircuitNo. 03-2502JOSEPH RODI,Plaintiff, Appellant,v.SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL OF LAW ET AL.,Defendants, Appellees.APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTFOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS[Hon. Nancy Gertner, U.S. District Judge]BeforeTorruella, Selya and Howard,Circuit Judges.Fredric J. Gross and Fredric J. Gross Law Firm on brief forappellant.Allen N. David, Elizabeth A. Houlding and Peabody & Arnold LLPon brief for appellees.November 10, 20041Although the parties submitted affidavits in the districtcourt, we eschew any reliance on the factual averments containedtherein, with a few exceptions that we elucidate below. We explainwhy in Part II(A), infra.-2-SELYA, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from a terse anduninformative order dismissing a nine-count civil complaint forfailure to state a claim upon which relief might be granted.Because it is impossible to tell what arguments the district courtfound persuasive, we have canvassed the field. We conclude thatthe complaint states one potentially actionable claim and anotherthat is not beyond hope of repair. Consequently, we reverse theorder of dismissal in part and remand for further proceedings.I. BACKGROUNDBecause this is an appeal from an order under Fed. R.Civ. P. 12(b)(6), we take the facts as they are alleged in theplaintiff's complaint.1 SEC v. SG Ltd., 265 F.3d 42, 44 (1st Cir.2001); LaChapelle v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 142 F.3d 507, 508(1st Cir. 1998). We ignore, however, "bald assertions,periphrastic circumlocutions, unsubstantiated conclusions, [and]outright vituperation." Correa-Martinez v. Arrillaga-Belendez, 903F.2d 49, 52 (1st Cir. 1990). Once the scene is set, we recount thetravel of the case.A. The Facts.In July of 1997, plaintiff-appellant Joseph Rodi, awould-be law student who resided in New Jersey, received a-3-recruitment letter from Francis J. Larkin, dean of Southern NewEngland School of Law (SNESL). The letter stated in pertinent partthat the accreditation committee of the American Bar Association(ABA) had voted to recommend SNESL for "provisional accreditation,"a status that would be granted upon ratification of therecommendation by two other ABA bodies. The letter also statedthat SNESL was "highly confident" of receiving the neededratifications and that the future of the school "has never beenbrighter." Because the plaintiff intended to take the New Jerseybar examination, the prospect of accreditation was criticallyimportant to him; New Jersey requires bar applicants to hold lawdegrees from ABA-accredited institutions.Larkin's letter ended with a pitch for enrollment. Thesolicitation bore fruit; the plaintiff enrolled at SNESL thatmonth. He received a catalogue from SNESL containing, inter alia,a statement (in the same type size and font as the surroundingtext) to the effect that: "The Law School makes no representationto any applicant or student that it will be approved by theAmerican Bar Association prior to the graduation of anymatriculating student." The complaint alleges that, despite thecheery optimism of Larkin's letter, the dean knew full well thatSNESL had identifiable deficiencies that would almost certainlypreclude ABA accreditation.-4-The ABA denied SNESL's application for accreditation inSeptember of 1997. As a result, the plaintiff consideredtransferring to an accredited law school for his second year ofstudy. Word of his ambivalence reached the dean's office. DavidM. Prentiss, who was then the acting dean, wrote to the plaintiffin order to "make sure" that he was "fully informed of the school'scurrent status regarding ABA accreditation." That communiquestated in substance that the school had improved the four areasfound deficient by the ABA and that there should be "no cause forpessimism" about the school achieving accreditation before theplaintiff's forecasted graduation date.In reliance on these and other representations — all ofwhich the complaint says were knowingly false — the plaintiffremained at SNESL. He came to regret the choice: according to thecomplaint, SNESL knew, but elected not to disclose, that the ABAwas highly critical of SNESL; that any faint hope of attainingaccreditation depended upon a complete overhaul of the faculty,administration, curriculum, and student body; and that the level ofnon-compliance made the prospect of SNESL's near-term accreditationremote. To compound this mendacity, the school frustratedstudents' attempts to learn about the true status of theaccreditation pavane.In November of 1999 — during the plaintiff's third yearof legal studies — the ABA denied SNESL's renewed application for-5-accreditation. SNESL failed to appeal to the ABA's House ofDelegates as it previously had promised. Instead, the schoolcashiered half of its full-time faculty, thereby straying evenfurther from ABA-mandated standards.The plaintiff completed his studies in June of 2000.SNESL remained unaccredited. Notwithstanding his diploma, theplaintiff has not been able to sit for the New Jersey barexamination.B. Travel of the Case.On July 18, 2002, the plaintiff sued SNESL, Larkin, andPrentiss in the United States District Court for the District ofNew Jersey. The district court dismissed that action for want ofin personam jurisdiction on April 10, 2003. Rodi v. S. New Engl.Sch. of Law, 255 F. Supp. 2d 346, 351 (D.N.J. 2003). On June 9,2003, the plaintiff, acting pro se, sued the same defendants in theUnited States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.Grounding jurisdiction in diversity of citizenship and theexistence of a controversy in the requisite amount, 28 U.S.C. §1332(a), his complaint incorporated copies of the Larkin andPrentiss letters and limned nine statements of claim.We confine our discussion to the two claims that theplaintiff presses on appeal: (i) that the defendants' statementsconstituted actionable fraud or misrepresentation, and (ii) thatSNESL's actions violated a consumer protection statute, Mass. Gen.-6-Laws ch. 93A, §§ 1-11. The defendants filed a timely motion todismiss, positing that the complaint, for a variety of reasons,failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. As tothe fraudulent misrepresentation count, the defendants asseveratedthat the "misrepresentations" were non-actionable statements ofopinion; that the supposed fraud had not been alleged with therequisite particularity; that, in all events, the plaintiff'sprofessed reliance
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