Correction appended
Grafton County Superior Court Judge Timothy Vaughan has ruled that the College did not violate the contract of theater professor Mara Sabinson, who first filed federal suit against the College in 2005 for discrimination and breach of contract. On May 20, ruling on a second state-level breach of contract suit filed by Sabinson, Vaughan granted the College's motion for summary judgment, in which the judge decides the case without a trial.
The U.S. District Court of New Hampshire had granted a previous College motion for summary judgment on the counts of age, sex and religion discrimination in 2007. Sabinson filed the second breach of contract suit in state court after the federal court declined to rule on the issue in November 2007, as the case was deemed a matter of state, rather than federal, law.
Sabinson filed an appeal of the federal court's summary judgement ruling with the First District Court of Appeals, which was denied in December 2008.
If Sabinson chooses to appeal the Superior Court's May 20 decision, her case will go before the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
"The College is very pleased that the Grafton Country Superior court reached the conclusion that we didn't breach professor Sabinson's employment contract," said Kevin O'Leary, an associate general counsel for the College.
O'Leary declined to comment further on the decision. The College's attorney in the case, Bruce Felmly, referred questions to the counsel's office.
College administrators had offered Sabinson a severance package due to concerns about her behavior as a member of the theater department. When Sabinson declined that offer, the College modified her teaching schedule, which had already been printed in the course guide, to limit her to writing classes within the theater department instead of intermediate and advanced acting classes. Sabinson alleged that this modification constituted a breach of contract, according to court documents.
The College argued in its motion for summary judgment that the case was invalid because Sabinson had not made use of College procedures established to address complaints before taking legal action, and because the modifications of her teaching schedule did not violate her contract.
Vaughan disagreed with the College's argument that Sabinson should have followed internal procedure before filing suit, as she would have been evaluated by the same people pressuring her to step down, according to court documents.
The judge agreed with the College, however, that Sabinson's contract had not been violated, arguing that the schedule modifications did not "violate any substantive contractual rights she may have had," according to court documents.
"Overall, evidence suggests that Sabinson was a good teacher and director, but that her style of interacting with students and faculty was controversial," Vaughan wrote in his summary judgment decision.
College administrators, including then-Dean of the College Edward Berger, had expressed concerns to Sabinson about her teaching and interpersonal style in 2001, according to court documents. Lenore Grenoble, associate dean of the faculty for the humanities, reassigned Sabinson's advanced acting classes to a different professor and her annual dramatic production to a different director in 2004, according to the documents. Grenoble also convened a panel of two outside experts and one English professor to evaluate the "acrimonious" atmosphere in the theater department.
The experts' report dealt with a wide range of issues in the department, including teaching quality and student morale, according to court documents.
The report also included a confidential letter in which the exports wrote, "It is clear to the committee that the Theater Department has suffered grievously from the presence of Mara Sabinson," and described her effect on the department as "corrosive," the documents said.
The letter recommended that Sabinson be pressed to take a severance package and, if she declined it, be "marginalized" to specific courses.
Sabinson was hired as a theater professor in 1985 and received tenure in 1991, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Sabinson declined to comment for this story and referred questions about the case to her attorney, William Clauson of Hanover, who could not be reached for comment.
