Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope™ Refiles Lawsuit Against Former Employee; Staley Denies Allegations

By Sahely Mukerji, smukerji@glass.com

Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope™ (OBE), with headquarters in Santa Monica, Calif., refiled its original complaint against former employee Jon Todd Staley in the district court of Northern District of Texas, Dallas division, on October 10. The company dismissed its original lawsuit against Staley in Kaufman County to refile, after Staley filed a Motion to Transfer Venue, stating that he lives in Rockwall County, not Kaufman County.

Staley now works for International Skylight d/b/a Acralight International.

"Acralight and Todd Staley vehemently deny all the allegations," says Jeff Rutledge, vice president-general manager of Acralight Texas. "We remain focused on our customers, employees and partners and will not be distracted by these allegations."

Staley worked closely with Rutledge, the former general manager of the skylight division of OBE, who worked on identifying potential buyers of skylight assets, according to the original complaint. Rutledge evaluated offers and made recommendations about potential buyers, the complaint states. He was terminated from Oldcastle in April, according to the complaint, "for causes unrelated to his work on the sale of the standard skylight assets," and began working for Acralight shortly after. Staley took over Rutledge's job.

In the complaint, OBE applied for a temporary restraining order against Staley and requested preliminary and permanent injunctions.

On October 12, the company followed up its original complaint with a Motion for Expedited Discovery and to Preserve Evidence. According to court documents, the motion alleges that, "Shortly before his departure, and apparently during his concurrent employment with Oldcastle's competitor, Staley transferred numerous Oldcastle documents containing confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets by emailing such documents from his Oldcastle email account to his personal email account and/or by attaching external computer storage devices to his Oldcastle computer. The full extent of Staley's misappropriation is still unknown. And to the extent Staley has subsequently transferred and deleted such information from his personal computer or other electronic device, evidence regarding such transmission may soon be lost through normal use of such devices."

"Oldcastle will likely suffer imminent and irreparable harm if its confidential and proprietary information is used or disclosed," alleges the motion.

On October 13, Judge Royal Furgeson granted in part and denied in part the emergency motion. "Within forty-eight hours of this Order, counsel for Mr. Staley must (i) select a forensic services provider to take an image of Mr. Staley's personal computer and (ii) instruct that provider to capture the image of Mr. Staley's personal computer," according to court documents. "A disk or other electronic device capable of storing that image must be delivered to Mr. Kevin Frye, 1100 Commerce Street, Room 1359, by Monday, October 17, 2011 at 12:00 p.m."

The judge denied OBE's request to serve written discovery on Staley. He also denied the motion for temporary restraining order. He ordered Staley to "respond on an expedited basis to the discovery requested in Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories and Requests for Production."

Staley answered the "Original Answer and Counterclaim" on November 3.
Source from: www.usgnn.cm