# Lindsey v. University of Arizona

> Court of Appeals of Arizona · December 29, 1987 · 157 Ariz. 48

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9547083

## Case

- **Full name:** Ben LINDSEY and Jerri Lindsey, Husband and Wife, Plaintiffs/Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA and Arizona Board of Regents, Defendants/Appellants/Cross-Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals of Arizona
- **Decided:** December 29, 1987
- **Citations:** 157 Ariz. 48; 754 P.2d 1152; 3 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 230; 1987 Ariz. App. LEXIS 664
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Livermore
- **Judges:** Roll, Livermore, Fernandez
- **Cited by:** 16 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9547083

## Opinion text

LIVERMORE, Presiding Judge,
specially concurring.
There are additional reasons on the facts of this case why no award for impairment of future earnings should be made. Any time an employee is fired or not retained there is necessarily a negative inference. If the employee were truly able an employer would retain him. Because the employer did not, he must not be truly able. That fact of life ought not to permit an award of damages. To hold otherwise might require employers to retain less than able employees because at some future time a jury might conclude that termination violated some implicit duty of good faith not to think badly of the employee.
Additionally, the conduct of the University in terminating Lindsey in breach of an oral contract to retain him for four years did not impair his future earning capacity. That capacity was impaired by Lindsey’s coaching record. The University’s act did no more than recognize what already was publicly obvious — Lindsey’s year at the University was unsuccessful. There is, it seems to me, no obligation of good faith to treat what is plainly true as false.
Lindsey, the jury found, was entitled to be paid his salary for four years plus those consequential losses, money for shoe contracts and basketball camps, normally associated with coaching. That is all to which he was entitled when the contract was breached.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9547083. Public record. Not legal advice.