Court Opinion

ID: 9714695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:43:22.056543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:27.865924
License: Public Domain

WATHEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, this case does not turn on an analysis of the scope of the Trustees’ authority over the educational policies of Colby College. Although, in the abstract the Trustees’ have broad authority, the scope of their authori*869ty is irrelevant to the present contract dispute. The sole issue in this case is whether the Trustees violated their contract when they withdrew recognition from the Zeta Psi fraternity.
In the 1951 Memorandum of Agreement, Colby agreed to allow plaintiff to construct a housing unit on the campus of Colby College “for the occupancy of the active chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity.” The College agreed that the building was to remain the property of plaintiff and that the fraternity would be entitled to sole occupancy of the building so long as the active chapter maintained the “social and academic standards required by the National Fraternity and required of all fraternities on the campus by said college.” Finally, the agreement provided that Colby would recognize the property rights of plaintiff according to the terms of the agreement “in the event the Chapter is suspended or expelled for reason either by the College or the National Fraternity.”
Under these provisions, whether the Trustees have breached the agreement depends on the construction to be given to the term “for reason.” The College urges the Court to construe that term as requiring only a rational justification that is neither arbitrary nor frivolous. Reading the entire agreement, however, I conclude that the agreement will not bear such a construction.
In section III(C) of the agreement, the College agreed to allow the fraternity sole occupancy of plaintiff’s building as long as the active chapter met the social and academic standards of both the College and the national fraternity. The plaintiff, in turn, pledged in section IV(B) that its chapter would maintain those standards. Under section III(E), the provision for recognition of plaintiff’s property rights is triggered when the chapter is “expelled for reason” by the College or national fraternity. The symmetry between these provisions demonstrates that the reason contemplated by the term “expelled for reason ... by the College” is a breach by the chapter of its obligation, found in sections III(C) and IV(B), to maintain academic and social standards required by the College or ,the national fraternity.
Thus, for Colby to have expelled the fraternity without violating the 1951 agreement, the chapter must have failed to meet the social and academic standards required by the College. Whether the fraternity did in fact fail to meet those standards and, indeed, what those standards were are genuine issues of material fact that preclude resolution of this case by summary judgment. I would vacate the order of the Superior Court and remand the case for trial.