1. Whether Plaintiff, a tenured professor, may assert a breach of contract action against his employer, Cornell University, where the Plaintiff claims that the University did not follow proper procedures in resolving students' sexual harassment claims against him.

2. Whether Plaintiff may convert his plenary action into a C.P.L.R. Article 78 proceeding.

1. No. The University's regulations and procedures do not create a contractual relationship with its employees.

2. No. The Plaintiff chose to pursue his plenary action and, given that it failed, he may not now assume a contrary position.

Professor Maas is a tenured member of the psychology department at Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. In 1994, four students filed sexual harassment complaints against him. The University reviewed the allegations in compliance with the internal departmental protocols entitled "Procedures to Handle Accusations of Sexual Harassment against Faculty Members of Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences." The Professional Ethics Committee then held five days of hearings on the allegations. The Committee found that Professor Maas's behavior amounted to sexual harassment and recommended sanction. The Dean of the College upheld those recommendations and the Provost rejected his administrative appeal. Plaintiff argued that the University's regulations and procedures created a contractual relationship and, that he could therefore maintain a breach of contract action based on violations of these procedures. The supreme court dismissed all but two of the Plaintiff's causes of action. The Appellate Division affirmed.

The Court cited precedent holding that the administrative decisions of educational institutions are entitled to great deference. The Court stated that C.P.L.R. Article 78 was the appropriate vehicle for such an action, but affirmed the Appellate Division's holding that Plaintiff could not now convert his plenary action into a C.P.L.R. Article 78 proceeding. The Court agreed with the lower court's reasoning that Plaintiff could not assume a contrary position after his eight causes of action were dismissed. Nevertheless, the Court addressed the merits of Plaintiff's action.

The Court examined the Plaintiff's claims in context of analogous wrongful termination disputes, reiterating its earlier holding that an employee in an action against his employer based on a violation of written policies needs to show that the employee was aware of the written policy and detrimentally relied on it. Plaintiff pleaded none of these necessary elements. The Court then applied traditional implied-in-fact contract theory from the Restatement [Second] of Contracts and found that there to be no manifestation of mutual assent to the alleged contract. The University never assented that its Campus Code formed an employment contract with its faculty, and Plaintiff, therefore, failed to plead a cognizable breach of contract action.