In Realpage Inc. v. Enter. Risk Control, LLC, 2017 BL 102339 (E.D. Tex. 2017), the court ordered Enterprise Risk Control, LLC (“Enterprise”) to produce forensic images of devices used by a former Realpage employee to a forensic neutral in order to determine whether any source code was recoverable pertaining to Realpage’s allegations of misappropriation.
Background
After leaving employment with Realpage in 2012, Tom Bean (“Bean”) started his own software development company named IDC. Bean and IDC were hired by former Realpage employee, and active Enterprise employee, Lonnie Derden (“Derden”) to design a vendor compliance application that was “completely different” than the one in place at Realpage. In July 2013, Enterprise hired Bean as a full-time employee and it was at that time that Bean transferred all of his source code for the vendor compliance application from IDC’s computers to Enterprise’s computers. According to Bean’s affidavit, he deleted all versions of his source code from IDC’s computers after the transfer.
Pursuant to this lawsuit, Enterprise made the vendor compliance application source code from July 2013 to the present available to Realpage for their analysis. During their review, Realpage found comments in the source code referencing dates from 2012 and early 2013, which Realpage argued indicated that versions of the source code from that point in time must exist. While the court rejected this argument, they recognized that Realpage’s complaints surround code that existed on or before the date that Bean transferred the source code to Enterprise. The court concluded that “a tailored [forensic] examination is appropriate at this time to determine whether the missing code is recoverable or to enable effective cross-examination as to its destruction.” Id. at *2.
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