Gertler v. Goodgold

• Decision Date: 04 April 1985
• Citation: 487 N.Y.S.2d 565,107 A.D.2d 481
• Parties: , 24 Ed. Law Rep. 422 Menard M. GERTLER, M.D., Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Joseph GOODGOLD, M.D., Saul J. Farber, M.D., David Scotch, M.D., New York University and New York University Medical Center, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 565

487 N.Y.S.2d 565

107 A.D.2d 481, 24 Ed. Law Rep. 422

Menard M. GERTLER, M.D., Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Joseph GOODGOLD, M.D., Saul J. Farber, M.D., David Scotch,

M.D., New York University and New York University

Medical Center, Defendants-Appellants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division,

First Department.

April 4, 1985.

S. Andrew Schaffer and Ada Meloy, New York City, for defendants-appellants.

Maurice N. Nessen, New York City, of counsel (Michael J. Dell, New York City, with him on brief; Kramer, Levin, Nessen, Kamin & Frankel, New York City, attorneys), for plaintiff-respondent.

Before SULLIVAN, J.P., and ROSS, BLOOM and FEIN, JJ.

SULLIVAN, Justice Presiding.

Defendants appeal from the denial of their motion to dismiss the complaint or, alternatively, for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

Plaintiff, a practicing physician and tenured faculty member in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine of New York University School of Medicine, instituted this action against New York University, the New York University Medical Center, which includes the School of Medicine, and three medical doctors who are faculty members and administrators of the School of Medicine, whom he claims have, through a series of related incidents, "sought, without justification, to undermine [his] career and deprive him of the basic benefits and privileges of his academic tenure." He seeks to enjoin the relocation of his office within the Medical Center's Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine and to recover compensatory and punitive damages totalling $4,150,000.

Alleging that the University is "obligated to provide adequate amenities and fair administrative conduct and decisions to provide [plaintiff] with 'full freedom in research and in the publication of results,' " the complaint sets forth four causes of action--breach of contract, intentional interference with contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and prima facie tort. It further alleges that through a pattern of discrimination plaintiff has been deprived of five supposed contractual concomitants of his tenure, viz., adequate space for research, fair teaching assignments, non-discriminatory treatment, cooperation in allowing and promoting research grants under discernible procedures, and adequate grievance procedures fairly administered under reasonably certain standards. Defendants deny that those so-called contractual concomitants are elements of any contract, and point to the University's by-laws and other governing documents for a general description of the actual attributes of academic tenure.

In both the complaint and affidavit submitted in opposition to the motion plaintiff alleges that the pattern of discriminatory acts began with the denial of teaching assignments in 1973, when Dr. Goodgold, one of the three individual defendants herein, became director of research at the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Although he still had his research and a staff to assist him, plaintiff alleges, defendants gradually began to deprive him of all his academic perquisites. For instance, Dr. Goodgold would often fail to notify him of scheduled meetings at which presentations were to be made for research funding; on other occasions he was given such short notice that he was unable to prepare adequately. As a result he was not given the opportunity to compete for grants on an equal basis with other staff members. In 1980 Dr. Goodgold allegedly attempted to prevent him from completing the application process for one grant and then, by a series of maneuvers was able to undermine the application. In late 1980 and early 1981, according to plaintiff, defendants, without any prior discussion, withdrew their consent to a grant which had been approved by the National Institute of Health (NIH). At that time plaintiff filed an unsuccessful grievance, the review procedures of which he describes as a parody of due process. In 1983 Dr. Goodgold allegedly effectively thwarted plaintiff's efforts to participate jointly in another NIH grant.

Plaintiff contends that this pattern of contractual breaches culminated in Dr. Goodgold's demand on April 2, 1984 that he and his five-person staff vacate, within 30 days, approximately 1720 square feet of office and work space they had occupied for the past 12 years on the second floor of the Medical Center's Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine to take less space on a part-time basis on the ground floor. Plaintiff was permitted, however, to keep his 1633 square feet of laboratory space. This relocation, he claims, will deprive him of the opportunity to conduct the advanced experiments in which he is engaged. Patients who furnish data for studies could not be seen, and his staff would certainly leave him. Thus, plaintiff contends, relocation would render meaningless his ability to research or teach--a basic tenet of academic freedom and the rationale underlying the tenure contract.

Three weeks after the demand that he vacate, plaintiff commenced this action and simultaneously sought pendente lite relief barring the relocation of his work space. Special Term denied the request for a preliminary injunction, and this court affirmed. In the interim defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action and lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and on the further ground that plaintiff's claims are time-barred. In the alternative defendants sought summary judgment. Special Term denied the motion. Since we believe that the complaint fails to state a cause of action, we reverse and dismiss.

While the complaint recites a litany of academic and administrative grievances couched in terms of a violation of a contractual right to tenure or a tortious interference with that right, it is significantly devoid of any reference to the contractual basis of these privileges of tenure. For example, the main focus of the complaint is plaintiff's claim of a right to office space. This was the subject of his unsuccessful motion for a preliminary injunction. Yet, there is nothing in the complaint or the record to show that tenure guarantees a faculty member any office at all, much less space of his own choosing. As a matter of academic practice, according to the record, efforts are made to provide a faculty member with office space for his immediate needs, but offices are not awarded on the basis of seniority, experience or credentials.

Plaintiff premises his asserted contractual rights on the proposition that the notion of tenure is instinct with the obligation to provide faculty members with adequate research facilities, as well as other benefits commensurate with their position. While tenure is a concept of some elasticity and, no doubt, the source of many rights, it cannot be the wellspring of every conceivable academic amenity and privilege. Nor can the University's academic and administrative prerogatives be impliedly limited by custom, or by a strained theory of contractual construction. "[I]mplied promises are to be cautiously and not hastily raised." (Genet v. President of Delaware & Hudson Canal Co., 136 N.Y. 593, 608, 32 N.E. 1078.) Indeed, the Court of Appeals has noted that "a promise can be implied only where we may rightfully assume that it would have been made if attention had been drawn to it ... and that it is to be raised only to enforce a manifest equity, or to reach a result which the unequivocal acts of the parties indicate they intended to effect." (Id. at 609, 32 N.E. 1078, citing cases.) This case is precisely the instance where such an assumption may not be made. The University has never expressly, by contract or otherwise, obligated itself to provide the amenities plaintiff claims, and thus has not relinquished its authority to make its own academic judgments and to administer and allocate its resources. The benefits which plaintiff seeks are undoubtedly perquisites of faculty life, but they are not contract entitlements.

Thus, notwithstanding the allegations of a deprivation of contractual concomitants, plaintiff's breach of contract claims against the University and the Medical Center fail to state a cause of action. While it is axiomatic that on a motion addressed to the sufficiency of a complaint the facts pleaded are presumed to be true and accorded every favorable inference (Morone v. Morone, 50 N.Y.2d 481, 484, 429 N.Y.S.2d 592, 413 N.E.2d 1154; Cohn v. Lionel Corp., 21 N.Y.2d 559, 289 N.Y.S.2d 404, 236 N.E.2d 634), allegations consisting of bare legal conclusions as well as factual claims flatly contradicted by documentary evidence are not entitled to any such consideration. (Roberts v. Pollack, 92 A.D.2d 440, 444, 461 N.Y.S.2d 272.)

Moreover, since the academic and administrative decisions of educational institutions involve the exercise of subjective professional judgment, public policy compels a restraint which removes such determinations from judicial scrutiny. (See Matter of Olsson v. Board of Higher Educ., 49 N.Y.2d 408, 426 N.Y.S.2d 248, 402 N.E.2d 1150; James v. Board of Education, 42 N.Y.2d 357, 397 N.Y.S.2d 934, 366 N.E.2d 1291; Matter of Levy [City Univ. of N.Y.], 88 A.D.2d 915, 450 N.Y.S.2d 574, aff'd 57 N.Y.2d 925, 456 N.Y.S.2d 765, 442 N.E.2d 1276.) This public policy is grounded in the view that in matters wholly internal these institutions are peculiarly capable of making the decisions which are appropriate and necessary to their continued existence. (See, also, Matter of Patti Ann H. v. New York Med. Coll., 88 A.D.2d 296, 453 N.Y.S.2d 196, aff'd 58 N.Y.2d 734, 459 N.Y.S.2d 27, 445 N.E.2d 203.) In James, supra, for instance, the court vacated the grant of a preliminary injunction temporarily staying the administration of an examination "as an unlawful interference with an educational policy judgment made by the appropriate school authorities in exercise of constitutional and statutory power." (Id., 42 N.Y.2d at 358-359, 397 N.Y.S.2d...