Plaintiff Emery Ogah is a USC student who had physical altercations with a non-student housemate in off-campus housing. He sued the housemate, housing facility, and USC for alleged tort violations, including negligent failure to protect. Before the lawsuit was filed, USC started investigating potential disciplinary violations arising from the fights between Ogah and his housemate. After the lawsuit was filed, USC set a formal disciplinary hearing for Ogah. Ogah sought an ex parte injunction to stop the disciplinary process, arguing that he would be harmed by the disciplinary proceedings because USC might discover information it would not otherwise be able to obtain in tort litigation. The trial court granted the injunction without a hearing.
USC retained Horvitz & Levy to appeal the injunction. After initiating the appeal, Horvitz and Levy filed a petition for writ of supersedeas, asking the Court of Appeal to stay the injunction during the pendency of the appeal. The Court of Appeal granted the writ and stayed the injunction, allowing USC to resume the disciplinary process. On the merits, Horvitz & Levy argued that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to consider the injunction request because Ogah had not exhausted his administrative remedies or followed the proper procedure for seeking injunctive relief under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5.
The Court of Appeal reversed the injunction. It held that Ogah did not satisfy any exception (in particular, the irreparable harm exception) to the administrative exhaustion doctrine that would allow the trial court to enjoin the proceedings. The court reasoned that Ogah’s concerns about potential discovery abuses were speculative and did not square with the university’s right to carry out its disciplinary process according to its own rules. Universities maintain these rights even when parallel civil or criminal suits are pending. The court avoided answering whether Ogah had to petition for a writ of mandate under section 1094.5 to seek injunctive relief because, even if he followed the proper procedure, he failed to establish a right to injunctive relief.
Ogah v. USC 
