So Reynolds, now the CEO of a high-profile biotech start-up, InVivo Therapeutics Inc., filed a lawsuit accusing Penn of breach of contract. Last Tuesday, a U.S. District Court jury in Philadelphia awarded Reynolds the $435,678 in damages - not for the value of a Wharton degree, but for not getting exactly what he expected.
Penn officials declined to discuss details of the case, but they said they planned to appeal.
"We are disappointed with the jury's verdict in this case and strongly believe that the evidence did not support the jury's finding," Phyllis Holtzman, an associate vice president, said via e-mail.
In court papers filed on the eve of trial, the Ivy League school denied that it had misrepresented anything to Reynolds or his classmates. While acknowledging that the program was "cosponsored by the Wharton School," Penn said it led to a degree only from its engineering school and a "certificate of completion" cosigned by the deans of the engineering school and of Wharton.
That wasn't enough, according to Reynolds and his attorney, Richard J. Heleniak, of Center City's Messa & Associates.
"At heart, he went into the program because he was interested in obtaining the education and a degree from Wharton, and in being able to represent that he was a graduate of Wharton," Heleniak said.
Reynolds voted with his feet. Besides declining the Penn degree until this year, Reynolds enrolled in another highly prestigious business program. In 2006, he said, he earned an M.B.A. from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Reynolds said in a telephone interview that he felt vindicated by the verdict, which he said compensated him for tuition, student-loan interest, and other costs associated with the executive-education program that he began in 2002.
