Opinion ID: 2294067
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Authority to Contract

Text: Finally, Brown contends that the members of the administration who courted Armstrong and Haviland lacked the authority  actual or apparent  to provide Haviland with what Brown characterizes as tenure-like status because only the Brown Corporation is vested with such authority. The defendant argues that the University's tenure-awarding procedures require a rigorous, multilayered peer review process  a process that did not occur when hiring Haviland. We disagree that Haviland was clothed with tenure  like status in this case. Haviland received neither tenure nor de facto tenure; Brown simply agreed to the aforementioned manner of performance review and, significantly, removal only for cause. An agent's apparent authority to contract on behalf of his [or her] principal arises from the principal's manifestation of such authority to the party with whom the agent contracts. Menard & Co. Masonry Building Contractors v. Marshall Building Systems, Inc., 539 A.2d 523, 526 (R.I. 1988) (citing 1 Restatement (Second) Agency § 8 (1958)). Such manifestation by the principal to the third person need not be in the form of a direct communication to the third person. The information received by the third person may come from other indicia of authority given by the principal to the agent   . Id. (citing 1 Restatement (Second) Agency § 27 cmt. a). And the third person with whom the agent contracts must believe that the agent has the authority to bind its principal to the contract. Id. (citing 1 Restatement (Second) Agency § 8 cmt. a). The recruitment and negotiations in this case involved members of the upper echelon of Brown's administration  including the Dean, the Provost, and the Interim President. Brown is precluded from denying that its administrators had the authority to provide plaintiff with employment security because the University has failed to produce any probative evidence establishing that those officers lacked such authority. Defense witness Trower testified that it was reasonable for Haviland to rely on representations made by the various members of the administration  particularly in light of Interim President Blumstein's suggestion that they think outside the box in crafting a position for Haviland in order to achieve what they really wanted  her husband as the Dean of the Faculty. Furthermore, the Brown Corporation did, in fact, approve Haviland's appointment, and therefore ratified that which its agents accomplished. The November 6 letter also included a cover letter with language stating that your appointment as S[e]nior Lecturer was approved by ConFRaT [10] and also stating that the administration had been instructed by University counsel to send a follow-up letter regarding renewal of her Senior Lecturer position, but that other than a few minor legal concerns, [t]here are no real differences. Dean Fennell's November 6 cover letter also contained the following: Please call me if you see anything unexpected; I can assure you that everything is still as we had agreed earlier. And, congratulations on your positive ConFRaT review. Further demonstrating Dean Fennell's authority is the language in the November 8, 2000 letter, which Brown contends served as Haviland's formal offer. The first sentence informs Haviland that on the recommendation of Professors Edward Ahearn, Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, and Mari Jo Buhle, Chair of the Department of American Civilization, you shall be appointed as Senior Lecturer and Visiting Associate Professor in Comparative Literature and American Civilization   . (Emphasis added.) This language suggests that plaintiff already had been approved and would definitively be appointed to both positions, pending her acceptance by signature. The language employed by Dean Fennell's cover letter accompanying the November 17 letter also notes that Dean Fennell was presenting Haviland with [a] version that passed muster with university counsel[.] We note that Rajiv Vohra, the Dean of the Faculty at Brown at the time of the trial (Dean Vohra), testified that Dean Fennell possessed no authority to offer employment terms that are substantially equivalent to tenure. Dean Vohra's testimony was the only suggestion that the various administrators that presented Haviland with her employment offer did not possess the authority to do so. He also testified that on occasion, the University will go out of our way to structure the terms of appointment that would be attractive [to professors] depending    on our interest in the candidate but not to change the rules. If Brown intended to alter the terms that had been set forth in the October 18 letter, it was the University's duty to repudiate such an unusual standard of review and make clear to Haviland that the job security she was relying on no longer was being offered. Brown failed to do so. Instead, the University continued to muddy the waters by continuously referring back to the October 18 letter and by alluding to varying and sometimes contradictory terms in a variety of communications. [11] We are satisfied that, based on the various representations conveyed to Haviland from the University administration  including the Dean, Provost, and Interim President  adequate and reliable indicia of authority are manifest on this record to show that the administrators were acting on behalf of the Corporation. Further, we observe that no convincing proof to the contrary was introduced at trial.