MIAMI -- A district court has denied a software company's request to have a case against them remanded after it lost a ruling involving health care software.
Healthcare Sales Enablement Inc., also known as PatientFinder, requested in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Feb. 25 that the court grant a motion to remand a previous court ruling denying a request to prohibit Anatoly Geyfman from soliciting clients for use of his Carevoyance software.
U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles found that Geyfman, an employee of Carevoyance and formerly of PatientFinder, provided, "ample evidence that PatientFinder’s value of injunctive relief far exceeds the amount in controversy." Gayles wrote, "When considering PatientFinder’s actual worth and its own statements about what is at stake in this litigation, Geyfman has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence the value of this litigation exceeds $75,000."
The company alleges it is not looking for monetary compensation in the matter.
However, Gayles ruled that, "PatientFinders’ cash in hand and the amount of money promised to Carevoyance for its core data represents the monetary value of the company and its assets [around $600,000]. Despite PatientFinder’s insistence that the court not consider the money promised to Carevoyance for the data, even when discounting that sum, the court still is left with $400,000 attributable to PatientFinder, an amount far exceeding $75,000. Second, the expected projections from current and potential client targets are well over $1 million."
In it's motion, PatientFinder asked the court to prohibit "Geyfman’s solicitation of clients as permitting him to do so 'would cause significant interference with a key business strategy underpinning PatientFinder’s relationship with [a data supplier],''' enjoin the release of a product identical to PatientFinder, enjoin Geyfman “from disclosing or using any of PatientFinder’s confidential information, and from disparaging PatientFinder”, and allowing PatientFinder to “pursue the opportunities for which it was created to pursue”.
Attorneys for PatientFinder contend they are concerned that Carevoyance "would have access to data PatientFinder needed to run its software, usurping PatientFinder’s market."
They also expressed concern that Geyfman "intends to market a copycat product called Territory Manager, which will effectively subvert PatientFinder and its place in the market." Doing so, the company says, will cause irreparable harm to its business.
According to court papers, Carevoyance marketed software meant to connect patients with health care professionals (and vice versa), as well as companies who serviced those professionals. "But the software was clunky and users complained about it."
In May 2017 a newer, streamlined version of the older software, PatientFinder, was created. Geyfman became one of three owners of the PatientFinder software.
"As part of his employment, Geyfman signed a non-compete and a non-solicitation agreement that limited his business activities for twelve months should he ever leave PatientFinder," according to court documents.
Geyfman eventually left PatientFinder to return full-time to Carevoyance where he "began to conduct business with at least five clients on the list", according to court documents.