PITTSBURGH – A rigging and machinery company filed suit against its former Project Coordinator, whom it says used its own technology and trade secrets to divert a six-figure amount of business to himself and his own rival company since 2017.
Steffan Industries, Inc. of McKeesport filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on July 16 versus Todd M. Shurtz and Roxanne Shurtz of Elizabeth and Rigging and Transportation Solutions, Inc., of West Newton.
Since 1987, Steffan has been since engaged in the business of rigging, which is the moving and storage of large and heavy pieces of equipment from one location to another or storing such equipment at the request of individuals and businesses entities located throughout the Eastern United States – in addition to providing services of storage, crane rental and steel fabrication.
Defendant Todd Shurtz, the nephew of Steffan’s owner Frank K. Steffan, was brought aboard the company in 1993, where he worked his way up to the position of Project Coordinator, the suit says.
In furtherance of his duties, he was given a smartphone, a laptop computer and a PC for his home, and due to the familial relationship between him and Steffan, was instilled with a “high degree of trust and responsibility.”
“As project coordinator, Shurtz obtained and used information which Steffan considered its trade secret or confidential information, including but not limited to, the identities and contact information of Steffan’s customers, its labor costs, the cost of operating and transporting the equipment it used to perform its services, its targeted profit margins, the amounts which Steffan previously bid for the same or similar job for the same customer, special customer requirements, the amounts for which it has provided services to customers on prior jobs, the number and skill of the employees necessary to perform the requested services with the available equipment, and other information which Steffan would not provide to others, especially its competitors,” the suit states.
The suit goes on to outline how Shurtz allegedly diverted and re-routed all incoming business to email and phone lines connected to a business he secretly devised and set up in November 2016, Rigging and Transportation Solutions, Inc., without prior notice to Steffan. Since Shurtz did not employ any workers or own any equipment for performing the services which Steffan performed, he allegedly entered into agreements with Steffan’s competitor companies to perform the services.
“On Jan. 3, 2020, Shurtz gave two weeks’ notice of his resignation from Steffan and left Steffan’s employ on Jan. 17, 2020. At the time he submitted the resignation, Shurtz turned in the smartphone, laptop and PC from which, he claimed, viruses wiped all the data,” the suit says.
“The data which was contained on the devices and which was collected by Shurtz during the performance of his job for Steffan and was the property of Steffan, which Shurtz had no right to delete and therefore destroy. In addition, the destruction of the data constituted the intentional destruction of evidence and an obstruction of justice.”
Steffan says it learned of the conduct of Shurtz as set forth above only after he left the company in January, when it learned that two of the jobs on which Steffan has submitted proposals to customers for whom it had done previous work had been performed by Shurtz, and it began to conduct an investigation into the reason.
For counts of violating the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act, the Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Secrets Act, conversion, unfair competition, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of common law obligation of confidentiality, fraud, conspiracy, tortious interference with existing and prospective beneficial business relationships and unjust enrichment, the plaintiff is seeking damages in excess of $50,000, exclusive of interest and costs of suit, in addition to reasonable counsel fees and costs of suit and exemplary and punitive damages, and a trial by jury.
Additionally, the plaintiff seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions to:
• Enjoin defendants and each of them from engaging as an owner, employee, partner, agent or affiliate of any person or entity in the rigging or equipment and machinery moving and storage industry for a period of not less than five years;
• Enjoin defendants and each of them from using in any manner any of the documents, information or material obtained by defendants as a result of the activities of Shurtz as an employee of Steffan;
• Order that all information or data in any computer owned or used by any defendant be deleted from any such computer and transferred to Steffan;
• Provide to Steffan the names of all persons or entities who are or were competitors of Steffan and with which or whom any defendant engaged in the equipment moving and storage business;
• Provide to Steffan the names of all persons or entities to whom any defendant provided rigging services at any time prior to and after Jan. 17, 2020.
The plaintiff is represented by Stanley M. Stein and George C. Thompson of Stein Law, in Pittsburgh.
The defendants have not yet secured legal counsel.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-20-007677
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com