Coop Attacks Suit, Claims Employee Disclosed Secrets

The Coop claims that its former Comptroller, who is suing the Coop charging breach of contract, forfeited all rights to collect damages when he allegedly leaked confidential Coop information to The Crimson last fall, a source close to the Coop said yesterday.

Fred Fox, who resigned as the Coop's Comptroller in August, brought an $85,000 suit against the Coop in November. The suit alleges that the Coop owes him severence pay, back pay, educational funding, pay for missed vacations, and pay for managing Coop properties.

Lawyers for the Coop denied the validity of Fox's claims in an answer recently filed in Suffolk County Superior Court.

The answer further states that even if Fox's claims were legitimate, he forfeited these claims by divulging "to third persons confidential information acquired by him during the course of his employment with [the Coop], all to the great harm and detriment of [the Coop]."

The Coop source said that reporters for The Crimson and the MIT Tech are the "third persons" referred to in the Coop's brief.

Both Fox and Joseph T. Fahey, a lawyer for the Coop, declined to comment on the case yesterday.

The Crimson printed a series of stories on the Coop last fall, some of which contained criticisms of the present Coop management. Apparently, the Coop feels that Fox was a source for some of those stories.