ASL Sues Former Executive
AMERICAN STUDENT LIST Inc., Mineola, NY, has filed a lawsuit alleging a former employee and his new companies are marketing names compiled by ASL.
In a June 8 amended complaint, ASL accuses former executive vice president Jan Stumacher and his companies-Student Marketing Group Inc. and Rhina International Direct Inc.-of conversion, unfair competition, contract interference and other claims.
ASL alleges files sold by Stumacher “contained decoy names that American Student List seeds into its list,” proving it is ASL’s, says Mark Mulholland, partner at Ruskin, Moscou, Evans & Faltischek, Mineola, an attorney for ASL. “ASL believes the presence of those decoy names in Mr. Stumacher’s list is evidence the list originated from ASL.”
ASL president Marty Lerner says the decoy names were discovered when ASL purchased a portion of the lists marketed by Stumacher’s company Student Marketing Group, based in Lynbrook, NY.
Stumacher, who was employed by ASL for 25 years, told DIRECT the suit “is nothing more than an attempt to forestall competition in the marketplace.” At press time his lawyer, Robert Hearth, a partner at Sidley & Austin in New York, said Stumacher planned to file a countersuit, but declined to specify what the claims would be.
The original complaint had been filed April 30 at U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Uniondale.
In a related matter, Stumacher and ASL are engaged in arbitration proceedings over Stumacher’s termination from ASL in February 1997.
ASL’s database contains 9 million names of high school seniors and college-bound high school students compiled from survey data.
In addition to alleging Stumacher is marketing names compiled by his former company, Mulholland says ASL challenges the accuracy of Student Marketing Group’s promotional material, including claims that “50% of his names are gathered from a survey.” Because the files contain data such as grade point average, class rank, religious affiliation and sports activities, Mulholland adds, “We believe the only way to get access to that information is through the type of survey ASL conducts.”
Mulholland notes that the unfair competition claim is based “on the [fact] that ASL has gone through extraordinary effort to compile its database. It is unfair for anyone to sell a part of those names at a discounted price, where the discount is achieved because they did not have to go through the effort ASL did to capture those names.”
Student Marketing Group’s prices are about $40 per 1,000 less than ASL’s.
Stumacher admits he is selling his names at a discount. “ASL is unhappy about that,” he says. “They have not had any true competition in the marketplace for years.”
Does Stumacher conduct his own survey? “That’s confidential information,” he says.
