Rimkus Consulting Group Inc. v. Cammarata - Ballard Spahr LLP

Case 4:07-cv-00405 Document 450 Filed in TXSD on 02/19/10 Page 36 of 139
A: (Shakes head)
Q: A Gmail address?
A: No. I don’t believe so.
(Id. at 247:20–248:1).
In August 2009, Rimkus completed a forensic analysis of its own computer system
and discovered a “cookie” showing that on September 30, 2006—three days after Bell
officially resigned from Rimkus but before his last day of work—Bell accessed his BellSouth
email address from his Rimkus work computer to forward documents to the email address
garylbell@gmail.com. Rimkus filed the forwarded documents under seal. These documents
are income statements for Rimkus’s Pensacola, New Orleans, Lafayette, and Indianapolis
offices, as well as an employee break-even analysis. The income statements contain the
August 2006 budget for each of those offices, including revenues, administrative costs, sales
and marketing costs, and the total net income or loss. Rimkus asserts that these documents
are confidential and accessible only by certain executive employees. Rimkus argues that the
September 30, 2006 email Bell forwarded to himself is evidence of trade secret
misappropriation. At a discovery hearing held on September 2, 2009, this court allowed
Rimkus to subpoena Google, an email provider, to obtain emails Bell sent and received using
the email address “garylbell@gmail.com.”
On November 15, 2006—the date Cammarata resigned from Rimkus and U.S.
Forensic began operating—Bell and Cammarata sued Rimkus in Louisiana state court,
seeking a declaratory judgment that the forum-selection, choice-of-law, noncompetition, and
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