Nashville-based Surgis Inc., an operator of ambulatory surgery centers, is accusing a former joint venture partner of going over to the enemy.
Surgis has filed suit against Surgical Concepts & Innovations, an Orlando, Fla. firm, and its CEO, Todd Riddell, after losing three contracts to provide endoscopy services to hospitals in Texas and Louisiana. Surgis claims that Riddell arranged for the hospitals to switch from its endoscopy subsidiary to a competitor, Surgical Services Inc., also headquartered in Orlando. Riddell is now CEO of Surgical Services.
The lawsuit, a copy of which is available at this link, was filed last week in Nashville's federal district court. It claims that Riddell's company, after entering into the JV in 2004 and accepting a loan of $633,000 from Surgis, failed to meet a benchmark of $1.25 million in annual revenue generated by the hospital contracts. The two sides discussed an unwinding of the partnership, but Surgis says it had no idea that Riddell was going to steer the business to Surgical Services. The legal action accuses the defendants of breaching their fiduciary duties, misappropriating trade secrets and fraudulently misrepresenting who would take up the contracts after Surgis.
In addition to damages and repayment of the note, Surgis asked the court for a temporary restraining order to keep Riddell and Surgical Services from utilizing its operations manual, hospital contract template, customer list and pricing model, all of which Surgis considers trade secrets. U.S. District Judge William J. Haynes granted the TRO after a hearing on September 27th.
Efforts to reach Riddell for this story have been unsuccessful.
Russ Morgan and Laura Dudney of Boult Cummings are representing Surgis in the case.
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