Foltz Welding, Ltd. v. Lauritzen

Filing 29

ORDER granting 16 Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Signed by Judge David R. Herndon on 2/12/2018. (csd)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
FOLTZ WELDING, LTD.,
Plaintiff,
v.

No. 3:17

–1207-DRH-SCW

JEFFREY LAURITZEN,
Defendant,

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on plaintiff's motion for preliminary
injunction (Doc. 16). Plaintiff Foltz Welding, Ltd., seeks to prevent defendant
Jeffrey Lauritzen from disclosing trade secrets to his current employer and to
have Defendant Lauritzen make available any computers which may have Foltz
Welding trade secrets therein.
On November 2, 2017, plaintiff filed a nine count complaint against Jeffrey
Lauritzen seeking injunctive relief, a declaratory judgment, and damages (Doc. 1).
Following this, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the case on December 28,
2017 (Doc. 13), which was denied in favor of staying this case until the mediation
and arbitration mandated by the employment agreement between the parties can
take place (Doc. 24).

Subsequently, on January 2, 2018, plaintiff filed the instant motion for
preliminary injunction (Doc. 16). Defendant has responded to this motion by
agreeing to the terms set forth by plaintiff, provided the search of the computers
is done in the presence of the defendant and his attorney and certain protocols
are agreed to.
In order to obtain a preliminary injunction, a plaintiff must show three
things: (1) without such relief, he will suffer irreparable harm before his claim is
finally resolved; (2) he has no adequate remedy at law; and (3) he has some
likelihood of success on the merits. If the plaintiff can do that much, the court
must then weigh the harm the plaintiff will suffer without an injunction against
the harm the defendant will suffer with one, and in addition, the court must ask
whether the preliminary injunction is in the public interest. See Harlan v. Scholz,
866 F.3d 754, 758 (7th Cir. 2017).
Given that the defendant filed a response which does not contest the
issuance of a preliminary injunction, the motion is GRANTED as follows:
1. To the extent that Defendant Jeffrey Lauritzen has access to any of the
following, he is precluded from disclosing or using any of Foltz’s trade
secrets or other proprietary data consisting of bidding strategies, bid
files, project estimation files, project pricing files, project cost
information,

project

construction

specifications

and

as-built

construction information, pricing strategies, labor or equipment rate
sheets, customer lists, profit margins and financial relationships with its

suppliers and customers, sales strategies and competitive bidding
strategies.
2. Defendant will permit a computer expert selected by Foltz Ltd., and
acceptable to him, to examine his family laptop computer in his
presence and the presence of his attorney, under an agreed-upon
protocol presented to and approved by the Court, to determine whether
there are any other Foltz files and/or e-mails on this laptop computer,
other than those identified in his Declaration (Doc. 26-1) and to remove
any of Foltz files and/or e-mails from the laptop computer. Defendant
will also permit the computer expert to examine his daughter’s laptop
which she received as a gift at Christmas 2017, if they wish, under the
same conditions aforementioned;
3. Defendant will permit the computer expert to examine his iCloud
account, as well as any electronic devices (such as computers of any
kind and smartphones) to which any of the information or data
described fully in paragraph 1 above has been uploaded or transferred
to, if any, under the same conditions aforementioned;
4. Defendant will permit the computer expert to examine every data storage
device, if any, to which any Foltz business data has been transferred,
uploaded, saved or stored, under the same conditions aforementioned.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Judge Herndon
2018.02.12 10:17:38 -06'00'
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE