Opinion
No. 01 C 5417.
November 19, 2001
MEMORANDUM ORDER AND OPINION
Plaintiffs contend that they were former employees of college athletic departments who were not paid the compensation to which they were entitled. According to plaintiff Crosby, he was told, falsely, that he was the Malcolm X basketball coach (although he then alleges that he single-handedly coached the team); that he worked at least thirty-five hours a week and often in excess of forty hours; and that he was paid only for twenty to twenty-five hours each week. According to plaintiff Chism, he was hired to be the assistant athletic director at Kennedy-King at an annual salary of $32,000 and that arrangements would be made to get him an additional position of academic counselor. Instead, he was paid $15 per hour for less hours per week than he actually worked and he never did get the other position. From those circumstances, they allege an FLSA violation in Count I, fraud in Count II and breach of contract in Count III. All these counts are alleged against City Colleges and two individual defendants are also named in Count II. City College now moves to dismiss Counts II and III and the individual defendants join in the motion to dismiss Count II. The motion to dismiss Count H is granted and to dismiss Count III is denied.
Both plaintiffs allege they were not paid the compensation to which they were entitled. That is enough for a contract claim (although, with respect to Crosby, it apparently doesn't add anything to his ELSA claim). We do not understand, however, his fraud claim. He says he was supposed to be head coach, he was head coach, and City Colleges agrees. Chism's fraud claim has a little more heft to it, but not enough. He alleges that certain promises were not kept but he does not allege that when they were made Welch knew them to be false and made the misrepresentation as part of a continuing scheme to defraud. He also relies upon Welch's representations "from time to time" that she was trying to get him additional compensation without specifying where or when and without alleging that the representations were untrue. For all we know from the allegations, she may well have been trying even though she did not succeed.