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Breach of Contract – Damages

By: Derek Hawkins//July 30, 2019//

Breach of Contract – Damages

By: Derek Hawkins//July 30, 2019//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Oliver Collins v. University of Notre Dame Du Lac

Case No.: 18-2559; 18-2579

Officials: BAUER, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Breach of Contract – Damages

Plaintiff Oliver Collins was a tenured professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame. In 2010, a faculty committee found after a hearing that Dr. Collins had misused grant money by purchasing equipment other than that in his grant proposals and then using the equipment for personal purposes. The committee concluded that his actions warranted “dismissal for serious cause” under the Academic Articles incorporated in Dr. Collins’s faculty contract. At the end of the university’s internal review processes, the president of Notre Dame ultimately dismissed Dr. Collins, who later pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge arising from his conduct.

Before the criminal charges were filed, however, Dr. Collins filed this suit against Notre Dame alleging that it breached his contract by dismissing him. In 2012, before his guilty plea, the district court granted summary judgment for Dr. Collins on liability on the theory that Notre Dame breached the contract by allowing one faculty member both to play a role in the informal mediation process and then to serve on the hearing committee. The court did not decide whether the faculty committee’s findings added up to sufficient cause to dismiss a tenured faculty member like Dr. Collins.

Following Dr. Collins’s 2013 guilty plea to a federal felony charge for theft of government grant funds in this same con‐ duct, Notre Dame re‐did Dr. Collins’s adjudication and dismissed him again so as to establish a “damage cutoff date” in light of the district court’s finding of a procedural error in the first adjudication. After the guilty plea, the court held to its earlier finding that Notre Dame had breached the contract by the procedural error. After a court trial on damages, the court awarded Dr. Collins $501,367, calculated as his lost compensation from the date of his dismissal on June 2, 2010 until the date of his felony conviction on February 28, 2013. Notre Dame has appealed, and Dr. Collins has cross‐appealed on the amount of damages and other issues. We reverse both the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Dr. Collins and the award of damages. The contract did not prohibit one faculty member from participating in informal mediation and then serving on the hearing committee. Further, the undisputed facts show “serious cause” sufficient to warrant Dr. Collins’s dismissal. Notre Dame is entitled to judgment in its favor.

Since there was no procedural breach, and since there was “serious cause” as a matter of law, Notre Dame is entitled to summary judgment. Dr. Collins is entitled to no damages. Our ruling renders moot all of the issues in Dr. Collins’s cross‐appeal. Accordingly, that appeal is dismissed. The district court’s judgment is REVERSED and the case is REMANDED with instructions to enter judgment in favor of Notre Dame.

Reversed and remanded

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.

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