The Osaka District Court on Thursday rejected a suit filed by three plaintiffs demanding a refund of prepaid admission and tuition fees from Kansai Gaidai University.
The plaintiffs felt they were entitled to a refund as they had decided not to enroll at the college.
At stake was the roughly 2.25 million yen they had paid in total to the private university before the Consumer Contract Law took effect in April 2001. Under the latter, parties can claim no more than normal damages in a canceled contract.
In delivering the court's ruling, presiding Judge Hiroshi Mori said a special contract provision in the university's admission guidelines stipulating that prepaid admission and tuition fees would not be returned was "aimed at avoiding damages caused by vacancies" and was not "necessarily unreasonable."
The ruling is the fourth in a series of lawsuits seeking refunds of prepaid admission and tuition fees.