Energy Resources Corp., Inc. v. Porter,

438 N.E.2d 391 (1982)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Porter (D) was vice president and chief scientist of ERCO (P). On October 5, 1979, he resigned and organized EEE. P was a science and engineering company in Cambridge that provided products and services in energy and environmental fields. One of its areas of investigation was a method by which sulfur in the burning of coal was captured as a solid rather than being allowed to escape as a gas. D came to P as an associate professor at MIT and D had specialized knowledge about fluidized bed combustion for well over 13 years prior to P's interest in the area. D joined P and got a salary and royalty agreement for his work on the process. Eventually, after presenting papers on a convention sponsored by DOE, D looked up fellow researcher who hatched a plan to get money from DOE by using the minority race card as all three conspirators were black. The deal was that Howard University was to be the primary applicant and P would be the subcontractor. P's participation was approved by the executive committee of P. Eventually, the Howard side of the equation decided that it did not want to work with D. Suddenly, the Howard connection did not want to be seen as a black front working for the white firm. Howard thought that it would get more money if there was a minority subcontractor involved. The Howard side broached the topic with DOE and found that D was the man they were interested in, and then they interested D informing his own company. D then informed P that they were not going to get the Howard deal when queried by P. D then formed EEE but cut himself off from Howard for the submission of the proposal. DOE awarded a grant to Howard and D resigned with P with one day's notice. D lied to P about his reasons for leaving. P sued D when it found out about the true facts. D prevailed, and P appealed.