Forwarded email leads Dassault to sue
Dassault Falcon Jet Corp. has filed a lawsuit against a Little Rock- based employee after an email containing confidential information inadvertently ended up in his hands last week.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, claims Kenneth Stump violated company policy and the law after forwarding information that contained hourly wages for over 400 employees from his work email to a personal account. Stump received the information on his work email account on Nov. 4 after it was mistakenly forwarded to him by his supervisor.
The complaint said Stump, who is a team leader within the company’s Little Rock completion center, was informed he should not have received the email and needed to delete it. When asked why he forwarded the information to his personal account, Stump said there were a number of “blessed” employees on the list and intended to use the information as future leverage for a raise.
Stump was suspended indefinitely two days later pending the result of an internal investigation and, when informed, told company officials he had already disclosed the document to his attorney and would harm the company by disclosing the information to third parties.
He retracted those claims later that night in response to an email from James Marks, Dassault’s vice president and general counsel, according to the complaint.
Stump said he had “no intent other than stupid curiosity” when sending the information to his personal account, told no one of its contents and did not share the information. Stump said he removed the email from his files, expressed “great regret” and accepted “full responsibility.”
Dassault claims Stump violated the company’s written policies, was insubordinate and willfully disregarded directives from managers. The company also said he committed theft of trade secret, computer trespass and unlawful act regarding a computer by sending the email to his personal account.
An attorney representing Dassault declined comment due to pending litigation Monday, while Stump did not return a message seeking comment. The company is seeking unspecified damages.