Statute of Frauds Bars Claim for Soccer Scholarship
May 1, 2013When Emily Hairston was a high school sophomore, the women’s soccer coach at Southern Methodist University, Brent Erwin, sought to recruit her to play on SMU’s team when she graduated. In May 2007, Erwin verbally offered Hairston a “100%” scholarship if she came to play at SMU. Over the next few years, Hairston and the coach communicated about the SMU soccer program, and Erwin even encouraged Hairston to try to graduate early from high school, which Hairston did. Hairston enrolled at SMU in early 2009, and joined the women’s soccer team. In February 2009, Hairston was told that she needed to pay $25,000 in tuition for that semester. Surprised, Hairston spoke with Erwin, who informed her that she did not, in fact, have an athletic scholarship. After some further discussion, Erwin and her father sued SMU and Erwin for, among other things, breach of contract. The trial court dismissed the case in SMU’s favor on summary judgment.
On appeal, the Court found that the statute of frauds barred Hairston’s breach of contract claim in at least two ways. First, to the extent Hairston claimed the scholarship was for all four years of her college career at SMU, the oral agreement could not be performed within a year of acceptance and, thus, had to be in writing under the statute of frauds. Alternatively, the Court noted that Hairston purported to accept the offer in May 2007, when she was a sophomore in high school. Because she could not have realistically enrolled in SMU within a year of her sophomore year of high school, the statute of frauds required the contract to be in writing. As a result, the Court affirmed the trial court’s decision.
