The underlying dispute pits Plymouth Medical, a New York distributor of regenerative medicine products, against EmCyte, the Florida manufacturer whose platelet-rich plasma devices made up roughly sixty-four percent of Plymouth Medical's sales. After an eleven-year business relationship soured during contract renegotiations, the two companies' falling-out unfolded in a compressed and, the court concluded, suspicious sequence. On the evening of March 9, 2026, Arianne Pinacate — Plymouth Medical's contractor and virtual assistant — used her system access to download Plymouth Medical's confidential master client list, including client email addresses. At 1:00 a.m. on March 10, she emailed Plymouth Medical's founder and CEO, Jo-An Tremblay, resigning effective immediately. Around 10:30 a.m. that same morning, EmCyte sent Plymouth Medical a cease-and-desist notice terminating their relationship. By 5:30 p.m., an email blast had gone out to Plymouth Medical's clients announcing that Plymouth Medical was no longer authorized to sell EmCyte products and inviting those customers to purchase directly from EmCyte at discounted rates. The 3,501 recipients were a 99.8 percent match to the client list Pinacate had downloaded the night before. The only variance was seven additional addresses belonging to Plymouth Medical's direct competitors.
EmCyte offered an alternative account. Its founder, Patrick Pennie, testified that he had decided to terminate the relationship on March 6 after suspecting Plymouth Medical of improper practices, and that his assistant, Marissa Guyan, coordinated with Pinacate to send the announcement through a Constant Contact email marketing account. Guyan testified she did not know the client email addresses were confidential, that she never downloaded or duplicated the contacts, and that she never used that particular Constant Contact account again after the announcement went out.
The court found EmCyte's explanation did not hold up. The Constant Contact account was protected by multifactor authentication tied to Guyan's phone, yet Guyan testified she never spoke with Pinacate after March 9 — leaving unexplained how Pinacate could have accessed the account on March 10 to upload the contacts. Plymouth Medical's forensic analyst, Robert Rohr, testified that someone exported the email contacts from the account twice on March 14; Guyan attributed this to a notification she received suggesting someone in the Philippines — where Pinacate lives — had accessed the account, but EmCyte produced no evidence of that notification. The court also noted that Pinacate, who had already downloaded the list directly from Plymouth Medical's database on March 9, would have had no reason to download it again from the Constant Contact account. And EmCyte never called Pinacate as a witness or produced a sworn declaration from her, despite Guyan's acknowledgment that she could communicate with her.
On the merits, the court analyzed Plymouth Medical's claims under both the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836, and the Florida Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Fla. Stat. §§ 668.001 et seq., treating them together. EmCyte did not dispute that the client list constituted a trade secret or that the interstate commerce element was satisfied. The court held that Plymouth Medical had established a substantial likelihood of success on its misappropriation claims, reasoning that while the case rested largely on circumstantial evidence, direct evidence of misappropriation is difficult to obtain in trade secret cases and circumstantial evidence is sufficient. EmCyte's defense, the court concluded, fell apart under scrutiny.
On irreparable harm, the court drew a line. Plymouth Medical's clients who purchased EmCyte products — sixty-four percent of its business — were not a basis for injunctive relief because EmCyte had the right to terminate the distribution relationship and Plymouth Medical would lose those clients regardless. But Plymouth Medical's independent clients, who had no affiliation with EmCyte, were a different matter. Tremblay testified that without an injunction, Plymouth Medical would likely have to shut down. The court held that the threatened loss of those independent customers constituted irreparable harm, and that EmCyte's claim it no longer had access to the list did not eliminate the risk because the solicitation had already gone out.
The court rejected EmCyte's unclean hands defense, which rested on Plymouth Medical having filed an unredacted copy of the expired distribution agreement as a complaint exhibit and then linking clients to it. The court found the argument insufficiently developed and declined to resolve the parties' competing interpretations of the agreement's confidentiality survival clause at this stage.
The injunction bars EmCyte from using, disclosing, or exploiting Plymouth Medical's master client list; from further contacting, soliciting, or communicating with any Plymouth Medical client other than those who purchased EmCyte products indirectly through Plymouth Medical; from conducting new business with any such client that was an existing Plymouth Medical customer as of March 10, 2026; and from destroying or concealing evidence related to the client list. The court denied without prejudice Plymouth Medical's request for a forensic examination of EmCyte's devices, finding the motion insufficiently supported, and invited Plymouth Medical to file a separate motion to compel.