By: Dale Schafer, Esq
On June 23, 2023, a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco ordered the Lynch v Node Labs case to Arbitration and Stayed the complaint.
On May 24, 2023, Node Labs, through Counsel, opened an Arbitration with the American Arbitration Association along with a Statement of Claim.
Node Labs specifically refutes the allegations in Lynch’s Complaint and
made multiple allegations of their own.
Node Labs alleges in Arbitration that Lynch signed an Asset Purchase Agreement, a Non-Compete Agreement and an Arbitration Agreement.
Lynch agreed to assign all intellectual property of his company, Compound Genetics, to Node, that he would be an at-will employee of Node, all developments of genetics during Node employment would belong to Node and Lynch would not compete with Node.
Node alleges that Lynch used their genetics to establish a new company, Cipher Genetics, and offered Node’s genetics to Cookies Seed Bank, in violation of the non-compete agreement.
Node also accommodated Lynch’s disability by signing a Return to Work Agreement, signed by Lynch’s Doctor, and actually accommodating Lynch’s disability.
Lynch offered to resign in exchange for the payment of over $300,000, a release of claims and the non-compete agreement. Node fired Lynch when he failed to work with the accommodations.
Node seeks damages, including punitive damages, and injunctions preventing Lynch from using Node Intellectual Property. From this point forward, the Arbitration will be confidential but we now know both sides allegations.
