Bioconvergence LLC v. Singh

BIOCONVERGENCE LLC d/b/a SINGOTA SOLUTIONS, Plaintiff, v. SIMRANJIT JOHNY SINGH, Defendant.

No. 21-cv-2090 (CRC)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

August 22, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff Bioconvergence LLC d/b/a Singota Solutions (“Singota”) is a life sciences company based in Indiana. For the past three and a half years, Singota has been embroiled in litigation with one of its former employees, Jaspreet Attariwala. Singota claims that Attariwala stole client contacts and other trade secrets in anticipation of taking a job with one of its competitors violating her employment contract and various trade secrets laws. Singota has now filed suit in this Court against Attariwala's husband, defendant Simranjit Singh, who resides in the District of Columbia.^[1] It alleges that Singh participated in Attariwala's efforts to steal confidential trade secrets and helped conceal this wrongdoing. Proceeding pro se, Singh moves to dismiss the complaint. For the reasons below, the Court will deny the motion.

I. Background

The Court draws the following facts from the allegations in Singota's complaint, which it must accept as true for the purposes of the motion to dismiss. See Sparrow v. United Air Lines, Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000).

A. Attariwala's Employment with Singota

Singota is an Indiana-based life sciences company. Compl. ¶¶ 12-13. It provides services to clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, animal health, and medical device industries, helping them meet FDA standards for sterile products administered by injection. Id. ¶ 13. From September 2015 to December 2018, Attariwala worked as a business development manager for Singota. Id. ¶¶ 27, 115. In that capacity, she had access to confidential information about Singota's business, including current and prospective client lists and proprietary information about the company's products and pricing. Id. ¶¶ 37-38. Attariwala's employment contract and the company's handbook required her to keep this information confidential both during and after her employment, and her contract included a non-compete clause lasting for twelve months after her departure. Id. ¶¶ 31-35.

In October 2018, while still employed with Singota, Attariwala began interviewing for a job with Emergent, a Maryland-based biopharmaceutical company that Singota considers a competitor. Id. ¶¶ 5, 56-57, 63-68. Singota alleges that, both before and after she secured that new position, Attariwala stole lists of clients and information about their business needs that Singota had developed, as well as proprietary information about Singota's business development and client solicitation strategies. Id. ¶¶ 82-144. Singota claims that at least some of the information was taken with Mr. Singh's cooperation and help-with crucial information forwarded to his personal email, downloaded to his computer, or uploaded to his cloud account. Id. ¶¶ 50-54.

B. Singota's Suit Against Attariwala

In January 2019, Singota sent Attariwala a cease and desist letter, demanding that she comply with the non-compete in her employment agreement and stop using any confidential information she had accessed in violation of that agreement. Id. ¶ 146. Singota also demanded that Emergent, Attariwala's new employer, ensure that she complied with the agreement. Id. ¶ 149. Singota alleges that, despite assurances from both Attariwala and Emergent, Attariwala soon used Singota's proprietary client information in her new role. Id. ¶¶ 147, 152-60.

In late February 2019, Singota sued Attariwala in an Indiana state court. Id. ¶ 167. That court entered a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against Attariwala. Id. ¶¶ 171, 184. Those orders, among other things, precluded Attariwala from using Singota's data and required her to preserve, identify, and return any confidential information in her possession. Id. ¶¶ 171-72, 184. The court appointed a forensic expert, at Attariwala's expense, to help identify confidential information still in Attariwala's possession. Id. ¶¶ 184-86. Singota alleges that Attariwala delayed providing or concealed devices and accounts with relevant information from the court-appointed expert-including ones belonging to Mr. Singh. Id. ¶¶ 192, 204. For her refusal to cooperate with the investigation and failure to pay the expert as ordered, the Indiana state court orally held Attariwala in contempt in April 2019. Id. ¶¶ 207-20.

Soon thereafter, Singota moved to amend its complaint to add Singh as a defendant. See Mot. Leave to Amend at 1-2, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 53C01-1902-PL-480 (Monroe Cir. Ct. Apr. 17, 2019). On April 30, 2019, Singota asked to withdraw its amendment request, without prejudice to refiling should it want to pursue claims against Singh later. See Mot. Withdraw Mot. Leave to Amend at 1, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 53C01-1902-PL-480 (Monroe Cir. Ct. Apr. 30, 2019). The Monroe Circuit Court granted the withdrawal motion. See Order, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 53C01-1902-PL-480 (Monroe Cir. Ct. May 9, 2019). Around that same time, Attariwala removed the case against her to federal court. Compl. ¶ 221.

Singota's case against Attariwala remains ongoing. In December 2019, Southern District of Indiana Judge Sarah Evans Barker granted Singota's request for further preliminary injunctive relief against Attariwala, finding that she had led it “on a months-long wild goose chase in search of its stolen trade secrets.” Id. ¶ 290-91. Although proceedings in that case were stayed for several months after Attariwala filed for bankruptcy, id. ¶¶ 293-95, discovery in Singota's case against Attariwala now continues, see Order Granting Pl.'s Unopposed Mot. Amend Case Mgmt. Plan, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 19-cv-1745 (S.D. Ind. May 27, 2022), ECF No. 382. The parties are set to file dispositive motions in September 2022 and be ready for trial by July 2023. Id.

C. Singota's Litigation Against Singh in the Southern District of Indiana

In June 2019, Singota amended its complaint in the Southern District of Indiana case against Attariwala, again seeking to add Mr. Singh as a defendant. Compl. ¶ 303. The amended complaint alleged that Singh had received Singota's confidential information and conspired with Attariwala to misappropriate trade secrets and help her violate her employment agreement. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 142-62, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 19-cv-1745 (S.D. Ind. June 18, 2019), ECF No. 30.

In March 2020, the Southern District of Indiana granted Singh's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. See Order Granting Defendant's Mot. Dismiss (“SDIN Jurisdictional Order”), Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 19-cv-1745 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 23, 2020), ECF No. 175. It held that Singota had not established that Singh, a District of Columbia resident, had purposefully directed any of his allegedly tortious conduct at Indiana, sufficient for that court to exercise personal jurisdiction over him. Id. at 20. The court emphasized, however, that its power “to enforce the terms of [its] Preliminary Injunction against Mr. Singh to the fullest extent necessary, if he is determined to be [i]n active concert and participation with his wife in any current or future attempt to evade compliance.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

D. Proceedings in this District

Singota now seeks relief against Singh in two proceedings in this district. First, in October 2020, Singota filed an action against Singh related to his apparent efforts to evade service of a deposition notice in the Indiana proceedings. See Mot. Leave to Serve Subpoena by Alternative Means at 2-5, Bioconvergence LLC v. Attariwala, No. 20-mc-101 (D.D.C. Oct. 14, 2021), ECF No. 1. Those discovery-related proceedings remain pending before Judge Contreras.

Second, in August 2021, Singota filed this civil action against Mr. Singh. See Compl.¶ 3. The complaint largely contains the same allegations previously raised in the Southern District of Indiana case. It contains seven counts. Compl. ¶¶ 402-52. They include violations of the Indiana, Maryland, and D.C. Uniform Trade Secrets Acts; violations of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1832; conversion; receipt of stolen property; and civil conspiracy. Singota also seeks recovery under the Indiana Crime Victims Relief Act and injunctive relief.

Singh, proceeding pro se, has moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety. See Mot. Dismiss, ECF No 9. The motion largely focuses on the Southern District of Indiana's dismissal decision. Singh suggests that Judge Barker's opinion evaluated the claims against him on the merits and found them speculative. He raises several other discrete challenges to the complaint, including lack of subject matter jurisdiction, improper venue, laches, and failure to join necessary parties. Singota opposes the motion, which is now ready for this Court's review.^[2]

II. Legal Standards

When analyzing a motion to dismiss under either Rule 12(b)(1) or 12(b)(6), a court “must treat the complaint's factual allegations as true, and must grant plaintiff the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged.” Sparrow, 216 F.3d at 1111 (cleaned up); see also Am. Nat'l Ins. Co. v. FDIC, 642 F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011). The court need not, however, accept a plaintiff's legal conclusions. Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002).

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) “presents a threshold challenge to the court's jurisdiction.” Haase v. Sessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987). “[T]he plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating the court's subject-matter jurisdiction over its...