Cases & Developments

Opinion and Order granting in part and denying in part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, the administrator of the estate of the former Governor of Vermont, brought claims of breach of contract, and unjust enrichment challenging Middlebury College’s decision to remove the Mead name from their campus chapel. In 1914, former Vermont Governor John Mead provided Middlebury College with the financial resources to build a chapel on its campus, which the College named the Mead Memorial Chapel. A century after Governor Mead’s passing, the College decided to remove the Mead name from the chapel. Plaintiff, the appointed special administrator for former Governor Mead’s estate, sued the College, alleging breach of the contract between the College and Mead, which included an alleged name condition. The College argued the chapel was a gift, that there is no name condition-subsequent attached to the gift, and that Mead’s intentions were donative in nature. The court, unable to determine whether the 1914 transaction falls into the category of a contract or a gift, held that the issue must be determined on the evidence at trial. The court found the College entitled to preliminary summary judgment because any naming condition is unenforceable if the transaction is determined to be a gift at trial. However, if the lower court finds the existence of a contract, questions remain as to whether the contract includes terms requiring the chapel to retain the name “Mead Memorial Chapel” in perpetuity. The court dismissed plaintiff’s unjust enrichment claim in light of plaintiff’s inability to demonstrate the retained benefit the College is receiving from the name change. In denying summary judgment related to the claim for breach of good faith and fair dealing, the court held that the jury must first resolve the question of fact as to whether the transaction was a gift or a contract. 

Memorandum Opinion & Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff is the niece of Father Gilbert V. Hartke, a priest of the Dominican order who taught drama at the Catholic University of America until he died intestate in 1986. She, in her individual capacity and on behalf of Father Hartke’s estate, sued the University and its auctioneers, asserting rights to a “blue pinafore dress with a white blouse, which had been worn by Judy Garland when she appeared as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz film” that had been given to Father Hartke and that was “discovered” in 2021 “in a storage location” on the University’s campus among other items that had belonged to him. In granting dismissal for lack of standing, the court held that plaintiff did not plead facts sufficient to show that she was the real party in interest, noting that Father Hartke had taken a vow of poverty at his ordination in 1933 whereby he renounced his salary and temporal goods in favor of the Dominican order, that the only item listed in the inventory of his estate during probate proceedings was the right to publicize his name, and that plaintiff had shown no basis for her now to assert a claim on behalf of the estate.