Professor’s Breach of Oral Contract Claim Dismissed By NY Federal Court March 17, 2010

When you read about a New York breach of employment contract case against a large institution that, if valid, would yield a significant amount of damages, yet the plaintiff is proceeding pro se, i.e., without an attorney, there is probably a very good reason for that. And Kant v. Columbia University, a case that was brought in a New York Federal Court is no exception to this rule.

In this case, the plaintiff, who was named a visiting scholar at Columbia University back in 2001, claimed that Columbia had breached their oral agreement to award him a tenure-track position in their economics department after completing one year as an unpaid visiting scholar at the University.

In granting the University’s motion to dismiss the complaint, the Court noted that even assuming that plaintiff’s assertions were completely true (the University denied the allegations), plaintiff’s claim still failed as a matter of law because the oral contract – even according to the plaintiff – provided for performance over a two-year period, and was therefore barred by New York’s Statute of Frauds.

As suggested above, this was not even a close case, because the Statute of Frauds clearly states that every agreement or promise that “by its terms is not to be performed within one year” will be deemed void unless it is reduced to writing. And employment contracts are no exception to this rule; to the contrary, a New York Federal Court expressly held as follows:  “An employment contract for a term of more than one year is thus unenforceable under the Statute of Frauds ‘unless it is memorialized in a writing signed by the party to be charged.’ Celi v. Canadian Occidental Petroleum, Ltd., 804 F. Supp. 465, 469 (E.D.N.Y. 1992).

Under the circumstances, it seems pretty clear why no attorney wanted to take this case.

Jonathan Cooper is a New York Business Litigation and New York Commercial Litigation Lawyer with a focus on New York breach of contract and New York business fraud claims before the Nassau, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Westchester and Suffolk County courts of New York State. For more information, feel free to contact his Long Island office at 516-791-5700.

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