Lincare sues former CEO 

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Lincare has filed a lawsuit in Connecticut district court against former CEO Crispin Teufel, who plans to join competitor AdaptHealth on Sept. 1, for breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty and misappropriation of trade secrets. 

Lincare seeks a temporary restraining order, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief, damages and attorney fees. 

“Since defendant’s resignation, plaintiffs have uncovered evidence demonstrating that defendant used Dropbox, a cloud-based file transfer software, to effectuate an extensive exfiltration of Plaintiffs’ trade secrets, confidential information and data in the days immediately preceding his resignation, all for his own personal benefit and/or that of AdaptHealth,” the lawsuit says. “For example, just prior to Defendant’s resignation, he archived large ‘.pst’ files associated with his Lincare email account, uploaded those emails to a Dropbox account associated with his personal email address, shared them with an undisclosed computer, accessed them on that undisclosed computer, and then deleted the files from his computer. This action, standing alone, is cause for grave concern and supportive of emergency injunctive relief.” 

AdaptHealth named Teufel its next CEO in June, succeeding Steve Griggs, who announced his retirement earlier this year. 

Lincare also alleges that it has uncovered evidence that Teufel engaged in extended discussions with AdaptHealth when Lincare was in final negotiations over terms and conditions for a major contract with a Medicare Advantage HMO provider. 

“Although Lincare had been initially awarded a contract, the defendant ultimately recommended during these negotiations that plaintiffs not pursue the contract,” the lawsuit says. “Thereafter, AdaptHealth pursued and successfully finalized the contract with the same provider.” 

AdaptHealth and Rotech in May were awarded contracts from Humana to provide home medical equipment to about 1 million Medicare Advantage HMO members. 

In a Form 8-K, AdaptHealth acknowledges the lawsuit but noted that it is not named as a defendant. 

“AdaptHealth has contractually prohibited Mr. Teufel from disclosing or using any confidential or proprietary information belonging to Linde Inc. or Lincare Inc. in connection with his employment at AdaptHealth,” the company stated. “AdaptHealth is closely monitoring the lawsuit and any potential effect on Mr. Teufel’s start date.”