Cortiva Institute Florida Student Defense Lawyer

Cortiva Institute operates three Florida campuses: St. Petersburg, in Pinellas County; Pompano Beach, in Broward County; and Maitland, in Orange County. All three are for-profit, licensed by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education and participating in federal student aid. They sit in three different court divisions, so venue depends entirely on which campus you attended — Pinellas and the St. Petersburg campus fall in the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division; Broward and the Pompano Beach campus fall in the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division; Orange County and the Maitland campus fall in the Middle District, Orlando Division, under Local Rule 1.04(a).

The stakes here are unusual, and most students do not realise it until too late

Massage therapy is one of the few fields where the school does not merely teach you toward a licence — it holds the only document that can get you to the examination. There is no alternative route, no self-documented hour total, no portfolio. If the school does not certify your graduation, the Board cannot process an application from you. That single fact should determine how you handle a dismissal from the first day, and it is why the fight is about the transcript rather than about the tuition.

Massage therapy licensure runs through a document the school controls

This is the single most important thing for a dismissed massage therapy student to understand, and it is not obvious. Under section 480.033(4), Florida Statutes, a “board-approved massage therapy school” has to satisfy two separate regulators at once: it must meet the Board of Massage Therapy’s curriculum and training standards by rule, and it must be licensed by the Department of Education under chapter 1005. Both, not either.

Then rule 64B7-32.002, Florida Administrative Code, sets out how you prove you finished. You prove it either by appearing on a graduate list the board-approved school submits, or by an official transcript from that school — or, if the school has closed, from the custodian of its records. There is no third route. No portfolio, no affidavit, no accumulation of hours you can document yourself. If the school will not certify graduation, you cannot apply for the licence, and the disqualification is structural rather than disciplinary: nothing in chapter 480 or chapter 64B7 treats a dismissal as misconduct, but nothing in them lets you around the missing transcript either.

That reframes what a dismissal dispute actually is. It is a fight over a record entry that the school issues and the Board requires, which means transcript language, hour totals and completion coding are the substance of the negotiation, not the housekeeping afterwards. It also means a settlement that resolves money but leaves the transcript unchanged has given you very little.

Rule 64B7-32.003 is worth knowing about as well. It lets the Board revoke a school’s approval where the school drops its course of study below minimum standards, fails to require students to complete the course of study before graduating them, or breaches a standard applicable under its Department of Education licence. If the timing goes the wrong way — approval revoked while you are still enrolled — credits earned there may not count toward the Board’s requirements at all, and that is a chapter 1005 problem to raise with the Commission for Independent Education, not a Board problem.

What a useful outcome looks like at a massage school

Because the transcript is the licence, the remedies worth asking for are narrow and specific. Reinstatement with a named re-entry date. Completion of the outstanding hours through a documented make-up plan. Re-coding a dismissal as a withdrawal so the record does not carry a terminal finding. A transcript that accurately reflects the clock hours you actually completed, module by module, whether or not you graduate — because those hours are what another board-approved school will look at when deciding how much of your programme it will accept.

What is usually not worth much is a refund, taken alone. A tuition refund closes the file and leaves you exactly as unlicensed as before, and it is often what a school will offer first precisely because it is cheap for them. If you are going to settle, settle on the record.

What a Florida court will and will not review

Your relationship with a private licensed school is contractual, not constitutional. Fourteenth Amendment due process constrains state actors, and a private institution is not one, so the argument is built on the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the handbook rather than on due process. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, 780 So. 2d 136 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), established both that the relationship is contractual and that damages can reach the lost value of the credential itself, not just tuition paid.

The limit on that is the part students are rarely told. In Tercier v. University of Miami, 383 So. 3d 847 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) — a nursing dismissal — the Third District confirmed that judicial review of a private institution’s academic determination is confined to whether it was arbitrary and capricious, irrational, made in bad faith, or in violation of the constitution or a statute. Jallali v. Nova Southeastern University, 992 So. 2d 338 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) says the same thing from the other direction: schools get wide latitude to set and apply academic requirements, and the student’s implied duty is to comply with rules the school may lawfully change.

The practical translation is short. “The faculty graded me unfairly” loses. “The school did not do what its own published policy said it would do” is the claim that survives, and it is why the first thing worth doing is reading the catalogue edition that was in force when you enrolled against what actually happened to you. Tercier carries a second lesson too: the court noted that claims not briefed on appeal were treated as abandoned. Arguments have to be raised, and preserved, at each level — including inside the school’s own process.

Which regulator actually holds the leverage here

Two different agencies matter, and students routinely write to the wrong one. Florida’s Commission for Independent Education licenses the institution under chapter 1005, Florida Statutes, and the Commission is where you complain about the school — misrepresentation in recruiting, refusal to release a transcript, a refund the school will not pay, a programme that stopped being delivered as advertised. Rule 6E-1.0032, Florida Administrative Code, requires a licensed institution to maintain and follow a published grievance procedure, and the Commission expects to see that you used it before it will act, so the internal appeal is not a formality you can skip on your way to the regulator.

A professional licensing board — Nursing, Massage Therapy, Psychology, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Care, whichever governs the credential — is a different body with different powers. It regulates the programme and the licence, not the school’s business conduct, and it will not order a school to readmit you. Sorting out which of the two can give you the thing you actually want is the first useful hour of work in most of these cases, because the wrong filing costs weeks and tells the school you are not being advised.

If the school closes while you are enrolled, section 1005.36 governs the notice it owes and the custody of student records, and section 1005.37 establishes the Student Protection Fund that can reimburse unearned tuition. Those are separate remedies from anything in your student contract and they run on their own deadlines.

A private school, so the statute students rely on does not apply

Most writing about Florida student dismissal assumes a public college, where Fla. Stat. section 1006.60(3) supplies notice, a hearing, the right to be accompanied by counsel and a burden that rests on the institution. This is a private institution. None of that section reaches it.

What governs instead is the enrolment agreement, the catalogue and the student and programme handbooks, read as a contract. Sharick v. Southeastern University of the Health Sciences establishes that a Florida student dismissed in breach of the school’s own contractual undertakings has a claim, and that damages can extend to lost future earning capacity rather than a refund of tuition.

Two further things matter at schools of this kind. Many enrolment agreements contain an arbitration clause, and whether it binds a student depends on the version signed, how broadly it is drafted, whether its cost terms are unconscionable and whether the school has waived it — that comes first, because it decides whether there is a courtroom at all. And where a school is licensed by the Florida Commission for Independent Education, the CIE complaint route exists alongside any civil claim and is often the faster pressure point.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

Resolve the arbitration question first, from the agreement the student actually signed.
Assemble the enrolment agreement, catalogue and programme handbook for the correct edition, and pin down the promises about process.
Test the progression arithmetic — withdrawals, repeats and clinical failures are often counted in ways the handbook does not authorise.
Use the Commission for Independent Education complaint route where the school is CIE-licensed, in parallel with the civil claim.
Press on the wording of the decision letter, which follows the student into every future licensure and transfer application.

Florida student defence

Other Florida technical and career institutions

Every school writes its own dismissal, appeal and conduct rules, and the filing deadlines are rarely the same from one campus to the next. These pages set out the procedure at other Florida technical and career institutions:

Common questions about Cortiva Institute cases

Can I sit for the massage therapy licensing examination if I was dismissed?

No, not on the strength of an incomplete programme. Rule 64B7-32.002 requires proof of graduation from a board-approved school, either through a graduate list or an official transcript from the school (or its custodian of records if the school has closed). There is no alternative route, so if the school will not certify graduation you cannot apply until you complete a qualifying programme somewhere.

Is a dismissal treated as misconduct by the Board of Massage Therapy?

No. Nothing in chapter 480 or chapter 64B7 makes academic dismissal a disciplinary ground or an independent disqualification. The bar is structural rather than punitive: you simply cannot produce the proof of completion the rule requires. That distinction is useful, because a records problem is negotiable in a way a misconduct finding is not.

What should I ask the school for instead of a refund?

A transcript that accurately shows the clock hours you completed, module by module. Then, depending on where you are in the programme: reinstatement with a named re-entry date, a documented make-up plan for outstanding hours, or re-coding the exit as a withdrawal rather than a dismissal. A refund alone leaves you unlicensed, which is why it is often the first thing offered.

What happens if the school loses its Board approval while I am enrolled?

Timing decides it. If approval is revoked after you have graduated and hold a transcript, the custodian-of-records mechanism in rule 64B7-32.002 generally still works. If it is revoked while you are enrolled, credits earned there may not satisfy the Board at all and you may have to re-enrol elsewhere. That scenario is a chapter 1005 complaint for the Commission for Independent Education, and section 1005.37 establishes the Student Protection Fund for unearned tuition.

Which court covers my campus?

It depends on the campus. St. Petersburg (Pinellas County) is in the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. Pompano Beach (Broward County) is in the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division. Maitland (Orange County) is in the Middle District, Orlando Division. Check your enrolment agreement first — an arbitration clause may control instead.

Why does a school need two different approvals?

Because section 480.033(4) requires both. A board-approved massage therapy school must meet the Board of Massage Therapy’s curriculum and training standards by rule and be licensed by the Department of Education under chapter 1005. Rule 64B7-32.003 lets the Board revoke approval where a school drops below minimum standards, graduates students who have not completed the course of study, or breaches a standard under its Department of Education licence.