Ameritox, Ltd. v. Savelich

Ameritox, Ltd. v. Savelich

Opinion

 [*391]  MEMORANDUM OPINION

Ameritox, Ltd. ("Ameritox")¹ sued Robert Savelich for breach of contract and other claims. ECF No. 1.² On February 25, 2015, the Court granted Ameritox's motion for a temporary restraining order ("TRO"). ECF No. 12.³ On March 9, 2015, the Court held a preliminary injunction  [*392]  hearing. ECF No. 19.⁴ For the following reasons Ameritox's motion for a preliminary injunction will be denied.⁵

I. Background

From April 16, 2010 to January 2015, Savelich worked for Ameritox as a District Manager responsible for the Northwest district. ECF No. 9-5 ("Hopkins Decl.") ¶¶ 6, 12.⁶ On April 12, 2010, Savelich signed a Confidentiality⁷ and Noncompetition⁸ Agreement ("Agreement").⁹ Id. ¶ 7; Hopkins Ex. 2.¹⁰ On April 13, 2010 Savelich signed an Employee Agreement on Inventions, Improvements, Copyright, and Trade Secrets ("Trade Secrets Agreement"),¹¹ and an Employee Confidentiality and HIPAA Privacy Agreement ("HIPAA  [*393]  Agreement").¹² Id. ¶¶ 8, 9; Hopkins Ex's. 3, 4.¹³ All agreements were signed by Savelich at his Oregon home. Savelich Decl. ¶ 10.

On December 19, 2014, Savelich informed [**7]  James Tully, Ameritox Regional Manager, that he would be resigning from Ameritox to work for Ameritox's competitor, Physicians Choice Laboratory Services ("PCLS"). ECF No. 10-4 (Tully Decl.) ¶ 25; Tully Ex. 1 (Savelich resignation email). Savelich told Tully that he did not think the Agreement would present any issues because PCLS focuses on different product lines, although Savelich would be responsible for Washington, Oregon, and other western states. Tully Decl. ¶¶ 26-27.¹⁴

In February 2015, upon learning that a PCLS recruiter had solicited an Ameritox employee, and had mentioned its successful recruitment of Savelich, Ameritox reviewed Savelich's Ameritox email account. Id. ¶¶ 29-30; see also ECF No. 9-6 ("Carr Decl.") (describing the efforts of Eric Carr, Network, Security and Compliance Manager, to search for emails from Savelich's work account to external accounts). Ameritox learned that, on December 23, 2014, and December 29, 2014, Savelich had sent several [**8]  emails from his work account to his personal account,¹⁵ to which he allegedly attached Confidential Information.¹⁶ They include:

• A December 23, 2014 email with the subject line "IMS.7z," to which Savelich attached a spreadsheet containing data on about 35,000 healthcare providers in Savelich's region. ECF No. 20 ("Field Decl.") ¶ 5; Field Ex.'s A, A -1; Tully Decl. ¶ 32(a).¹⁷ Those providers are Ameritox's past, present, and potential customers. Tully Decl. ¶ 32(a). Ameritox purchased the health provider information from IMS Health ("IMS"). Tully Decl. ¶ 9. Savelich also attached customer lists from Ameritox's proprietary "Territory Management Tool" ("TMT"). Field Decl. ¶ 5(b); Field Ex. A-2; Tully Decl. ¶¶ 11, 32(b).

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