Soliant Health, LLC v. Aequor Healthcare Services, LLC, Civil Action No. 1:23-cv-02354-LMM (N.D. Ga., May 25, 2023)

Healthcare staffing company, Soliant Health LLC, has brought suit against its competitor Aequor Healthcare Services LLC in the Northern District for misappropriation of trade secrets and tortious interference with business and contract relations. Soliant “helps fill the healthcare employment gap by pairing medical staff with various healthcare providers and facilities throughout the United States.” Complaint, ¶ 10.

The Complaint alleges that in 2021, Aequor began actively soliciting employees to leave Soliant and join Aequor, allegedly encouraging the employees to break their employment contracts’ restrictive covenants and confidentiality agreements. Id. at ¶ 40. One such employee allegedly scalped by Aequor, Robert Lutz, was a division director at Soliant with high-level access to Soliant’s candidate and pricing databases (the alleged trade secrets). Id. at ¶ 57. According to the Complaint, shortly before resigning, Lutz “double-deleted” years’ worth of emails and accessed the trade secret databases. Id. at ¶¶ 61-62. Soliant claims that after Lutz began working for Aequor, travel nurses working for Soliant began receiving recruiting text messages on their work phones from Aequor. Id. at ¶ 63. Soliant claims the only explanation is misappropriation of their candidate database where the work numbers of their nurses were listed, because even the dummy profiles in the database received the message. Id. at ¶ 73.

The Complaint brings one count for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1831-39, one count for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Georgia Trade Secrets Act, O.C.G.A. § 10-1-760, and one count of tortious interference with business and contract relations under Georgia law. The case has been assigned to Judge Leigh Martin May.