SARAH

Sarah Bellum is a brilliant young legal scholar who is being recruited to teach at Cosmopolitan University School of Law. Sarah signs a contract to begin teaching at CUSL at an annual salary of $300,000. The contract provides that Sarah’s employment will begin on August 1. It goes on to provide: Prior to [August 1], the Employee [Sarah] shall provide to the Administration all documentation and other materials necessary to demonstrate that (1) he/she is an American citizen or otherwise authorized to engage in lawful employment in the United States; (2) he/she possesses a Juris Doctorate degree from an American Bar Association-accredited law school or an equivalent foreign law degree; and (3) he/she has been admitted to the practice of law in at least one American or foreign jurisdiction. The contract also provides that no modification to the contract may be made except in writing signed by Sarah and by the Human Resources Vice President of Cosmopolitan U. As of August 1, Sarah, who has been doing a lecture tour in the Far East, fails to supply any of these documents. She is, in fact, an American citizen, earned her J.D. with high honors from a top school, and is a member of the bar, and CUSL’s hiring committee has no reason to doubt those facts, but there is no documentation in the file. On August 2, the Human Resources Vice President at CU notifies Sarah that the contract is terminated since she did not get her documents in by August 1. Sarah, who had turned down lucrative offers from many other elite schools—where it is now too late to get a job for the year—sues. It becomes apparent that the reason that Sarah’s contract was terminated was because the CU administration had discovered a massive budget shortfall and that it no longer wanted to pay Sarah under the contract. What result and why?