## Facts

- Beginning around 1961, Robert I. Kully and William A. Goldman had an oral arrangement concerning University of Nebraska football season tickets.
- Goldman annually obtained eight season tickets: four for himself and four for Kully.
- The season-ticket reservations and university records listed Goldman as the ticket holder; the university did not recognize Kully as having rights in the tickets.
- For many years (except 1972), Kully paid Goldman the retail cost for the four tickets either before or after Goldman obtained them.
- In 1979, the parties disputed Kully’s continued right to receive the four tickets.
- Kully sued seeking equitable relief, including (1) injunctions preventing Goldman from withholding annual transfers of the four seats and (2) a declaration that Goldman held the tickets in trust for Kully; Kully also argued agency and contract theories.
- The district court denied relief as to the remainder of the 1979 season based on accord and satisfaction, but ordered a mandatory injunction requiring Goldman to obtain and transfer the four tickets for all future seasons upon Kully’s payment and posting of bond.

## Issues

1. Whether the parties’ long-term course of dealing created an express, resulting, or constructive trust in Kully’s favor regarding the four season tickets.
2. Whether an enforceable agency agreement or contract required Goldman to obtain and transfer the tickets to Kully each season going forward.
3. Whether equity could compel Goldman, by mandatory injunction/specific performance, to obtain and transfer the tickets for all future seasons.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the judgment denying relief for the remainder of the 1979 season based on accord and satisfaction.
- The court reversed the portion of the judgment finding an implied trust and ordering Goldman to procure and transfer tickets for all future seasons.
- The court remanded with directions to dismiss the action insofar as it sought future-season equitable relief.

## Legal Principles

- A trust in personal property must be proven by clear and convincing evidence; a long-standing informal arrangement and payments, without proof of trust intent or circumstances justifying a constructive trust, is insufficient.
- Equity generally will not order specific performance or a mandatory injunction requiring a continuing series of acts over an indefinite period, particularly where enforcement would require ongoing judicial supervision or depend on contingencies and third-party practices.
- Even if a contract or agency relationship could be inferred from a course of dealing, the ordinary remedy for a breach of such an ongoing arrangement is damages rather than an open-ended decree compelling future performance.
- Accord and satisfaction between parties resolving a dispute for a particular period bars further relief as to that period.

## Conclusion

The Nebraska Supreme Court held that Kully’s evidence did not establish a trust or justify a decree compelling Goldman to obtain and transfer season tickets indefinitely in the future, and it rejected specific performance by mandatory injunction as an improper equitable remedy for such an ongoing arrangement, while leaving in place the denial of relief for the 1979 season based on accord and satisfaction.


Kully v. Goldman, 208 Neb. 760, 305 N.W.2d 800 (Neb. 1981)