SAN ANTONIO – HouseCanary recently filed a motion to supplement the record and for leave to take jurisdictional discovery in its lawsuit against Quicken Loans.
The complex litigation between HouseCanary and the Quicken Loans family has provoked numerous pleadings and spilled over into multiple courts.
In early June, a Texas appellate court overturned a $706 judgment in favor of HouseCanary and ordered a new trial. That suit was brought by Amrock, which is part of the Quicken Loans family.
In late June, the Texas Supreme Court granted a HouseCanary petition for review and will decide whether to reverse an appellate court’s decision to overturn an order sealing eight exhibits that the company argues protect its trade secrets.
The motion for leave was filed in a suit HouseCanary brought against Quicken Loans, One Reverse Mortgage and In-House Realty in May 2018 in the U.S. District Court for Western Texas.
Although the litigation spans several courts at once, the crux of the allegations remains the same.
Amrock, at the direction of Quicken Loans, had contracted HouseCanary, a real estate analytics firm, to develop an automated valuation model mobile application for appraisers to use on smart devices in the field.
When HouseCanary failed to produce the app, Amrock claims it was forced to develop its own mobile AVM app and sued for breach of contract. That claim was ultimately rejected by a trial court and appeals court, which both hold that Amrock failed to prove its claim and that there is sufficient evidence of HouseCanary delivering a working app.
HouseCanary maintains Amrock misappropriated their trade secrets in developing the app.
Court records show HouseCanary’s suit in federal court was temporarily stayed back in March. The trial court issued the stay until it rules on the defendants’ motion to dismiss or transfer for lack of personal jurisdiction and venue.
HouseCanary filed its motion for leave on July 17 “in light of new corporate admissions that undermine the prior testimony Defendants offered to this Court and the facts they asserted to contest the Court’s jurisdiction in this case.”
“A Recent Form S-1 Registration Statement by the Quicken Loans Family off Companies—detailing a massive corporate restructuring—is rife with facts that go to the heart of the jurisdictional and venue issues,” the motion states. “These facts establish Defendants, Amrock, and Rock Holdings, Inc. as alter egos, thus binding
Defendants to the forum selection clause in the Master Software License Agreement with HouseCanary.
“A lifting of the stay is warranted so that HouseCanary can fully unearth these facts in order for the Court to have the benefit of them in resolving the pending motions.
HouseCanary argues the discovery should occur now to “ensure that in the midst of this massive restructuring, documents indicating the Family of Companies’ prior structure and those documents relevant to the Defendants’ decision to become a ‘combined business’ will be preserved and produced.”
HouseCanary is represented in part by Max Tribble Jr. of Susman Godfrey LLP in Houston.
Case No. 5:18-cv-00519