Justia Rhode Island Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff Walter Moore appealed a grant of summary judgment in favor of the Defendants, the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education (Board of Governors) and the University of Rhode Island (URI). Plaintiff brought an employment discrimination suit against the Defendants in 2008, and in that suit, the record revealed that Plaintiff executed a waiver and release in which he released Defendants from liability for any lawsuits that arose from his employment with the Board of Governors. Plaintiffâs claim was then dismissed in the lower court. On appeal, the issue before the Supreme Court was whether that waiver-and-release applied to the URI as an agent of the Board of Governors. After reviewing the case records, the Supreme Court was not satisfied that the record reflected the waiver applied to the URI. The Court vacated the judgment of the lower court and remanded the case for further fact-finding proceedings.