## Facts

- Loyola University recruited Dr. Martin Lewis, a pathologist, to serve as chair of its medical school’s pathology department.
- During negotiations, the medical school dean sent Lewis written letters addressing employment terms, including a promise to recommend Lewis for early tenure consideration and to propose early tenure approval by a specified date.
- Lewis later accepted written appointment letters for limited terms as department chair; those appointment letters did not repeat all items addressed in the dean’s prior letters.
- Loyola maintained tenure procedures described in a faculty handbook, involving institutional review and decisionmaking.
- The dean resigned before the promised tenure recommendation occurred and never made the promised recommendation, later characterizing the omission as an “oversight.”
- Loyola relieved Lewis of his chair duties and informed him that his next appointment year would be his last.
- Lewis sued for breach of contract, asserting that the dean’s written promise to recommend early tenure consideration was a binding contract term and that he likely would have received tenure had the recommendation been made.

## Issues

1. Whether the dean’s pre-appointment recruitment letters, including the early-tenure recommendation promise, were enforceable terms of Lewis’s employment contract despite later appointment letters and handbook procedures.
2. Whether the failure to make the promised tenure recommendation constituted a breach attributable to the university and caused Lewis to lose tenure and related benefits.
3. What measure of contract damages was recoverable, including whether tenure-related future earnings beyond trial were too speculative.
4. Whether the appellate court had jurisdiction given the timing of notices of appeal relative to a pending post-trial motion.

## Decision

- The appellate court treated the dean’s recruitment letters as part of the employment contract because they contained material inducements tied to Lewis’s acceptance of the position.
- The court upheld liability for breach based on the dean’s failure to perform the promised procedural step of recommending early tenure consideration and accepted the trial court’s causation finding that Lewis would have received tenure but for that failure.
- The court limited recoverable damages in this employment-contract setting to losses accrued up to the date of trial, rejecting open-ended or speculative future tenure-based earnings.
- The court found appellate jurisdiction proper notwithstanding the procedural timing concerns.

## Legal Principles

- In academic recruitment, written assurances by authorized university officials may be enforceable contract terms when they contain material promises relied on by the recruit, even if later form appointment documents do not restate them.
- A contractual promise to undertake a tenure-related procedural act (e.g., to recommend tenure consideration at a specified time) can be enforceable independent of the institution’s ultimate discretion to grant tenure.
- Contract damages for breach of an employment agreement are limited to amounts proven with reasonable certainty and may be restricted to losses accrued through trial; speculative long-term earnings are not recoverable.
- Where a promised recommendation is omitted, liability may be established if the plaintiff proves the omission caused the loss of a likely favorable tenure outcome.

## Conclusion

The court held that a dean’s written recruitment promise to recommend early tenure consideration could form part of a faculty employment contract and that failure to make the promised recommendation supported breach liability, but it confined damages to provable losses accrued through the trial date rather than speculative future tenure income.


Lewis v. Loyola Univ. of Chi., 500 N.E.2d 47 (Ill. App. Ct. 1st Dist. 1986)