I hate to drag this out, but it seems the consensus of legal experts disagree with this. You're saying someone's verbal statement overrules a written, signed contract? What am I missing here?
The claim here is that Geno was told verbally by someone at Kent State that they would not enforce his written contract, but then Kent State went ahead and sued for breach of the written contract, anyway. And then the Ohio state courts repeatedly upheld the written contract and ruled in favor of Kent State and rejected Bradley's and Geno's appeals, but that was because they were all biased because they were all from Ohio? Is that right? Sorry, but it's really hard to buy that every judge in Ohio is that corrupt. If they were biased toward Ohio, why wouldn't they support Geno? He is an Ohio legend.
I am not a lawyer, but I have negotiated contracts with and for a major corporation. And from what I have been told by multiple legal experts is that although "verbal contracts" can sometimes be as legally binding as written contracts, they are often hard to prove in court, and when it comes to a conflict between a verbal statement (contract?) and a written, signed contract, it is the written contract that is held legally binding by courts.
Again, that is not just my opinion, but what I have been told repeatedly by contract attorneys and what is said by many legal sources I can find on the internet. Here are just a couple-
https://www.mlflitigation.com/media/...tten-contract/
Verbal Terms Cannot Contradict the Written Contract
What if there were, according to us, verbal terms or statements made at the time of signing that lead us to believe that a certain understanding was in effect. What if that understanding was contradictory to the written terms of the contract? Can we rely on a verbal understanding to escape liability? The answer is unfortunately no.
https://www.mkpalaw.com/blog/2019/03...egal-disputes/ -
Written agreements trump verbal ones in legal disputes.
In the words of one anonymous British humorist, “Oral agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re not written on.”
You think it’s a done deal, right? But unless any changes and modifications to the existing contract are put into writing and signed by both parties, any verbally agreed-upon changes or oral agreements between the two of you will not be enforceable in a court of law.
Yes, you are missing something. I linked you the entire legal doctrine. It's called promissory estoppel/detrimental reliance. You can't promise someone that you won't enforce a provision of a contract, have that person rely on your promise, and them sue them to enforce the provision you said you wouldn't.
This wasn't a verbal contract issue. It wasn't an integration clause issue either (that's what your two links are talking about). It was Kent State telling Geno and Bradley they could do something, both of them doing it, and Kent State reneging on it after the fact. Kent State got away with it because (1) they were stuck in Ohio state courts that were going out of their way to protect the state school's money, and (2) Geno's lawyer defended the case by claiming the $1.2 million buyout figure was unenforceable rather than focusing on them being estopped from denying the buyout negotiation promise.
The reality was Kent State agreed he could interview, agreed the buyout would be $600,000, and then was apparently mad he took a new job and sued. The first two things happen all the time in college sports. The latter virtually never happens because smart ADs don't want to scare off future coaching candidates by making promises and then claiming they didn't.