Saint Louis University won a legal battle on Tuesday against Rama K. Nemani, a researcher who claimed the University used his name on a grant application without his permission.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in favor of SLU, reversing a 1998 decision that had awarded $300,000 to Nemani. The court decided that the SLU did not use Nemani’s name inappropriately and therefore did not owe him damages.

Judge Duane Benton, who authored the majority opinion, wrote that SLU acted with implied consent. The opinion stated that Nemani was a SLU employee when the grant application was filed. Also, Nemani had signed a memorandum stating that he would do “collaborative research.”

As stated in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Charles A. Seigel III, Nemani’s attorney, called the court’s decision is “a very dangerous precedent that an employer can use the employee’s name for any purpose.”

Nemani began his work at SLU in 1987 as an assistant research professor.

He also served as a research chemist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, from which most of his salary came in the form of a grant. SLU’s first request to renew this grant was rejected.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the University’s 1993 application to the National Institute of Health for a separate grant listed Nemani as a co-investigator. Nemani did not participate in the research project.