Court grants CoStar’s discovery request in legal battle with Move

The lawsuit, filed in early July, alleges Kaminsky stole trade secrets to help fuel Homes.com’s rapid growth. In mid-July, Move filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against defendants CoStar Group, Inc. and James Kaminsky to prohibit and restrain any further unauthorized access to the following files owned by Move, and any use or disclosure of Move’s confidential and commercial documents. classified information in the files.”

Move asked the court to grant preliminary injunction without any discovery, prompting CoStar to file an ex parte motion.

According to CoStar, the motivation behind its ex parte request for expedited discovery was to “discover the facts,” noting that it would “allow the parties to submit to the Court a comprehensive brief containing evidence and testimony regarding the actions committed by Move claimed trade secrets. Kaminsky’s alleged actions, his work for CoStar, the manner in which Move is alleged to have suffered harm, and the urgency and alleged irreparable nature of such harm, all of which will give the Court the benefit of a comprehensive account of the issues raised in the case has been presented. Movement.”

“Move flatly rejected Defendants’ motion to allow such discovery, even though it requested certain expedited discovery as part of its motion,” CoStar’s ex parte filing said. “Significantly, Move shows no interest in quickly discovering, prior to the preliminary hearing, the truth about the defendants’ alleged conduct, and is unwilling to disclose the facts about its own investigation, its timing, the alleged trade secret to make. nature of the documents in question, and the basis on which Move alleges that such documents were used to compete with it.”

On Monday, Judge George H. Wu granted the motion, noting in the court docket that the parties “meet and discuss emerging issues, and if any issues are unresolved, submit a joint brief no later than August 5, 2024.” ”

Additionally, the hearing regarding Move’s request for a preliminary injunction will continue on September 23, 2024.

“We are pleased that the Court denied Move’s attempt to obtain an injunction without discovery and granted CoStar’s request for discovery and for a hearing in September,” wrote Gene Boxer, general counsel for CoStar Group, in an email to HousingWire. “We have said all along that Move’s case is a PR stunt, and Move’s attempt to hide the facts was in line with that. We look forward to holding Move accountable.”

Since Move filed for a preliminary injunction, CoStar has revealed that it has placed Kaminsky on paid leave, and in a July 25 filing, Kaminsky denied wrongdoing.

In the filing, Kaminsky notes that he is a content editor who was hired by Move in June 2015 to build a news department at the company with the goal of driving web traffic to the Realtor.com website and increasing consumer brand recognition at Realtor to enlarge. com, and expanding advertising monetization opportunities for Realtor.com.”

Kaminsky said he was told on Jan. 10, 2024, that he was part of the layoff at Move, and that Jan. 12 was the last day he could come into the office or work from home. Because of the layoff, Kaminsky said he downloaded personal financial documents such as pay stubs and W-2 forms, as well as his recent performance reviews and employee thank-you notes, because he wanted to have access to these things for personal, tax and financial matters. financial reasons.

“I had many other personal files on my Move-issued computer. Many of these were very sensitive documents about services for my children, or medical assessments that my wife sent to me to print at the office, since we didn’t have a reliable printer at home for years. I also had emails with my credit card information,” Kaminsky wrote in his statement.

“Before I left Move and ultimately returned my laptop to Move, I didn’t have time to carefully prune the selection of emails I wanted to delete for personal privacy purposes. So I deleted most of my emails and electronic files to prevent them from disappearing. be seen by the technology staff who would process my computer return.”

Kaminsky wrote that he deleted these emails and files not to destroy evidence, as Move claimed in its preliminary injunction, but as an act of “basic privacy hygiene.”

In addition to the personal and financial documents Kaminsky sent himself from his Move account, he wrote that he also gave himself “temporary access to some of the documents” he “considered.” [he] thought could be helpful when looking for a job. According to the filing, these included articles and documents he wrote or supervised during his time at Move.

“On January 11 and 12, I sent myself links to most of these documents without carefully reacquainting myself with them,” Kaminsky wrote. “I had no interest in keeping, sharing, or using these documents for any reason other than short-term assistance in generating job search materials for myself. I gave myself what I assumed would be temporary access in the most transparent and public way I know how: literally putting my name on it.”

Kaminsky noted in his filing that the system was not completely secure, given that he could authorize his personal email instead of a Move email address, suggesting “that the documents were and were not very important ownership documents.”

“In my opinion, the documents do not contain highly sensitive materials. Many were documents I had written myself and all were documents I had seen at Move. To the extent they contain information related to my job as head of “News & Insights”, I was already aware of that information during my 8.5 years at Move,” he wrote.

In an emailed comment, a spokesperson for Realtor.com wrote that the latest pieces of the lawsuit “just the [Move’s] case.”

“The CoStar employee admitted under oath to accessing and deleting many electronic files from Move, corroborating our allegations,” the spokesperson wrote. “Although CoStar initially denied any wrongdoing, they placed their employee on leave. Today, the judge acknowledged that CoStar’s behavior appears to be inappropriate, and we fully agree with that.”

Kaminsky’s attorney did not return a request for comment.

The lawsuit is the latest development in what has become a long-running feud between Homes.com and Realtor.com. The companies have been debating in recent months over who will take the title of the second largest listing portal Zillowwith Realtor.com claiming that Homes.com’s claims of being the No. 2 portal in terms of traffic and impressions are false.