A Roanoke County jury found in favor Thursday of 16 former Virginia Western Community College nursing students who claimed they were misled after the college lost its national nursing accreditation and didn't tell them about it.

They are the first among a group of 75 plaintiffs who were in the nursing program between 2005 and 2007 who have argued that the state -- through the community college -- defrauded them and breached a contract for their education.

After a nine-day trial and four and a half hours of deliberation, the seven-member jury awarded each of the 16 former students $47,000 on the issue of fraud. Each of the students was also awarded $6,800 for breach of contract, except for one who received $11,500.

"It took perseverance and courage for these former nursing students to bring this lawsuit against the commonwealth," said the plaintiffs lawyer, John Fishwick. "We respect the jury's verdict."

John Gilbody, who argued for the state attorney general's office, declined comment after the verdict. Brian Gottstein, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said, "While we are disappointed with the verdict, the court has given us two weeks to file post-trial motions. We plan to file those motions and will consider our options thereafter."

Josh Meyer, spokesman for Virginia Western Community College -- which was removed as a plaintiff in 2008 -- said college officials were "disappointed in the verdict." Meyer said the college has no plans to seek accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, but said the current nursing program allows graduates to sit for their board exams, win jobs or apply for higher-level degrees.

The case was first filed in December 2007, when 59 current and former nursing students sued the college and state for about $23 million. Since then it's grown to include the additional plaintiffs. The remaining plaintiffs have been split into three sets that will see separate trials, the second of which is scheduled to begin in February.

Until 2006, the college's nursing curriculum was approved by the Virginia Board of Nursing and had conditional accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission. In June that year, however, the National League for Nursing withdrew its accreditation. The college's nursing handbook, website and other literature continued to indicate that the program still had that accreditation, according to the plaintiffs.

According to case files, the students argued the college didn't tell them about the loss of national accreditation until "just weeks before the end of the 2006-2007 academic year." On July 24, 2007, the college announced it would not be seeking reaccreditation from the national group "because it [would] not add significant value to our Nursing Program," according to the suit.

But the plaintiffs argued the loss of national accreditation devalued their degrees because some employers wouldn't hire them and some advanced degree programs wouldn't admit them. The students -- almost all of whom now have jobs, according to testimony at a motions hearing earlier this month -- said they could not transfer into four-year nursing programs, that governmental and armed forces jobs were closed to them, and that many were forced to take lower-paying jobs than they were qualified for.

They also said they "suffered damages to their professional reputations, financial damages, emotional distress and interference with family relationships," according to documentation included in the case file.

The verdict provided at least a temporary stopping point on a case that's encompassed three and a half years of legal jockeying over a series of depositions, motions, amended complaints, hearings, court orders, arguments and counterarguments, rulings and orders that have narrowed the scope of the suit and its defendants.

Judge James Swanson dismissed Virginia Western as a defendant in 2008 after ruling that it was "not a governmental entity subject to suit" under state law. Later that year, he ruled that the commonwealth of Virginia -- which remains a defendant on the fraud and breach of contract complaints -- could not be sued under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act because the act's provisions don't apply to the state itself.