An Indiana diagnostic company has a long memory and had asked in Washington County Circuit Court for an injunction to be enforced against a former employee who now lives in Fayetteville.
Agdia Inc. of Elkhart, Indiana, through attorney Dustin Doty of Wright Lindsey & Jennings LLP of Rogers, filed for foreign judgment in mid-July. Agdia had won a default judgment and permanent injunction in Elkhart Superior Court in June against Jun Xia, who is known as John Xia.
Xia worked for Agdia, which sells diagnostic kits for plant pathogens, until he left the company in 2001. The company sued Xia shortly thereafter, according to the filing, and received a permanent injunction in 2002.
The filing said Xia formed AC Diagnostics in Fayetteville after that injunction to directly compete against Agdia. Agdia filed for another injunction against Xia and AC Diagnostics in U.S. District Court in Indiana.
That injunction was granted in December 2017 and the terms said Xia was not allowed to “own, manage or control” any part of a business that competed against Agdia for five years. AC Diagnostics was also ordered to be closed.
Agdia said that after the injunction, Xia began working with Nano Diagnostics, which has the same Fayetteville address as the former AC Diagnostics. On Nano’s website, it is listed as a “division of AC Diagnostic Inc.” with a copyright attributed to AC Diagnostics Inc.
Agdia filed for another injunction, and the Indiana court ruled in May that although Xia’s role was “cloaked in some obscurity,” he had violated the injunction by being involved with Nano.
Specifically, the court found that industry contacts were told Nano was the “changed name” of and had the same employees as AC Diagnostics, the organizer of Nano was Xia’s wife, and the Nano website displayed pictures of Xia and industry articles written by Xia.
The court issued a five-year injunction against Xia to prevent him from owning, managing or controlling any company that deals with pathogen diagnostics services or goods and from working or consulting for any such company.
The court said, for the “sake of clarity,” that Xia’s involvement with Nano violated the injunction and he was ordered to end his work with the company.
Xia was also ordered to pay nearly $5,700 in attorney fees and any additional costs. Any violation of the injunction could be punishable by a contempt of court ruling.
