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looking forward to how Mary is going to explain how production output levels were supposed to be maintained at a company that small when half of their circuit design team unexpectedly dies.
but no, it's the "conspiracy" of four dudes who decided they didn't want to work for her.

How to destroy your company's name in 5 minutes.

aens_wife wrote:This bums me out. I can't imagine what could be gained by this suit. It won't bring Nick back. It won't make the company easy to run without Nick. It will, however, create a lot of bad blood in a very tight community and drain all available resources that would be better spent on new designs and pushing the brand forward.

Its a $1.6M suit. Nic's mom is not trying to salvage the company. She's trying to cash out first with this lawsuit and then with a sale of the IP after the fact.

Sonaboy wrote:looking forward to how Mary is going to explain how production output levels were supposed to be maintained at a company that small when half of their circuit design team unexpectedly dies.
but no, it's the "conspiracy" of four dudes who decided they didn't want to work for her.

This was exactly what I was thinking. There is no way that I could continue without Ben longterm without MAJOR changes.

Were Nic and Howard personally building pedals? The vibe I got from that section was more about the production of already released products.

whoismarykelly wrote:Were Nic and Howard personally building pedals? The vibe I got from that section was more about the production of already released products.

Not exactly what I meant, but I'm still assuming that Gee and Nic were involved in the day to day in some manner. I'm just saying that a company that small, even moderate changes can be troublesome, let alone a blow like a designers death can create. It's hard for me to remember, but Erks was giving the impression that Mary walked in and began reading the riot act, demoralizing an already stunned crew. But that's his side of the story, even though we all know that he cared about the fate of the company.
Her making a claim that "conspiracy" was the direct cause of a production drop is pretty presumptuous.

It would be interesting to know what they mean by "trade secrets" and how much of it is actually a "secret", regardless of the steps they took to make it confidential. It seems like in the pedal industry, everything is based on standard and well-known circuits, and to the extent their trade secrets are embodied in their sales practices, advertising schemes, etc., I highly doubt they could be considered secrets per se. Taking a publicly known concept, describing it in a document, and then stamping the document with the word "confidential" does not make the concept a secret. If anything, perhaps there was a breach in the employment agreement, which might have included a non-compete clause or something to that effect, but even then such clauses are hard to enforce. It sounds to me like they were just not going to listen to the new owner, had no respect for her and thought she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe so, but she inherited the company and became the rightful owner. There was probably a much more reasonable way of dealing with the issue - like maybe just approaching her with a reasonable buy-out offer instead of doing all this sneaking around. Just my take on it without knowing all the facts, of course.

Allegedly.

bemaha wrote:Taking a publicly known concept, describing it in a document, and then stamping the document with the word "confidential" does not make the concept a secret.

Looks like I've got a rubber stamp to return then.

They probably rub their sack on each pcb and that's the trade secret right there.

who could help her cash out? Actually curious. Only company I can think of is Cusack.

Cashing out would be a matter of selling the IP and not necessarily another company outright buying Cbread. Someone may be interested in acquiring all their designs and rights to build them. Similar to the E13/Dwarfcraft thing.

bemaha wrote:It sounds to me like they were just not going to listen to the new owner, had no respect for her and thought she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe so, but she inherited the company and became the rightful owner. There was probably a much more reasonable way of dealing with the issue - like maybe just approaching her with a reasonable buy-out offer instead of doing all this sneaking around. Just my take on it without knowing all the facts, of course.

During this same time period, Defendants were using Catlinbread laptops to communicate privately on the online messaging service Slack. Defendants used Slack to communicate plans to compel Burkett to sell them the company by making it difficult if not impossible to continue operations if she refused.

Sounds like they were probably trying to do just that and she instead opted to spy on them and force them out rather than cooperate.
From the way the suit read, she seems to be extremely paranoid, controlling, and vindictive.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the entirety of her claims were blown out of proportion for the specific purpose of discrediting them (obviously, that's kinda the point when it comes to lawsuits, but whatever).

"Collectively, all of this information constitutes Catalinbread’s valuable trade secrets, its “secret sauce.”"

I can't believe this is in a legal document

jrfox92 wrote:

bemaha wrote:It sounds to me like they were just not going to listen to the new owner, had no respect for her and thought she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe so, but she inherited the company and became the rightful owner. There was probably a much more reasonable way of dealing with the issue - like maybe just approaching her with a reasonable buy-out offer instead of doing all this sneaking around. Just my take on it without knowing all the facts, of course.

During this same time period, Defendants were using Catlinbread laptops to communicate privately on the online messaging service Slack. Defendants used Slack to communicate plans to compel Burkett to sell them the company by making it difficult if not impossible to continue operations if she refused.

Sounds like they were probably trying to do just that and she instead opted to spy on them and force them out rather than cooperate.
From the way the suit read, she seems to be extremely paranoid, controlling, and vindictive.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the entirety of her claims were blown out of proportion for the specific purpose of discrediting them (obviously, that's kinda the point when it comes to lawsuits, but whatever).

The whole thing seems wonky and sad but if they were actually conspiring (through online messaging no less) to actually tank the company or force her out...seems like her paranoia would be warranted?