USC files for removal of legal dispute
USC has changed its legal representation and brought its legal dispute with the University of California, San Diego to federal court in the latest of a series of developments in UCSD’s suit against the University. USC and UCSD are awaiting a trial that will decide who has rights to an Alzheimer’s research program.
USC’s lawyers filed for the removal of the institution’s legal dispute with UCSD shortly after San Diego Superior Court’s Judge Judith Hayes issued a preliminary injunction ordering the restoration of control over former UCSD researcher, Paul Aisen’s Alzheimer’s study to UCSD. The injunction also requires USC to avoid manipulation of lab data pulled from clinical trials all over the United States.
A court notice filed in Hayes’s court recognized that USC has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a Los Angeles litigation-only law firm to replace the Costa Mesa Office of the Paul Hastings law firm.
The dispute began in July when Paul Aisen, head of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study since 2003, moved to USC, bringing his research and data bank with him. The La Jolla university alleged that USC, Aisen and eight colleagues planned to take the research data of over 1,000 patients, along with other assets to the USC’s medical school.
However, Aisen said that USC was one of the institutions he approached when he started to consider universities that would provide the sort of administrative support and academic commitment to his field of research.
“USC has always had a commitment to research and neuroscience,” Aisen said. “I approached USC as a potential place that could offer. I had already been working with a number of faculty members at USC and so, I think USC was very open to the idea of my joining the institutions because it was consistent with USC’s commitment in this area.”
UCSD seeks financial damages and full ownership of the $100 million, nationwide project database.
Hayes’s order to return the research program to UCSD is currently in effect, but it is still being decided whether the case should move to federal court.
A main factor fueling USC’s contention is UCSD’s supposed failure to cite specific facts corroborating their allegations in the legal documents submitted to the state court judge.
UCSD has had control over the Alzheimer’s research program for nearly 25 years and still retains government funding with the backing of the National Institutes of Health.
Aisen said a reason for the switch was that UCSD lacked the proper resources necessary for the optimal continuation of his Alzheimer’s research program.
“UCSD did not have the support that we needed,” Aisen said. “Many efforts to improve the administrative environment never really accomplished what we needed, so that was the reason I considered other institutions.”
Both the University and Aisen deny any wrongdoing and argue that UCSD is only inhibiting a person’s freedom to switch jobs.
Aisen argued that the decision to file a lawsuit against USC sets a bad precedent for UCSD.
“Any university wants to be able to recruit successful faculty members,” Aisen said. “I don’t think that establishing this as a precedent, that faculty members must be loyal to the institution and may be sued if they leave — that’s not a good precedent for future recruitment.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Richard Seligman, associate vice president for research administration at the California Institute of Technology said researchers moving schools is not rare.
“It is common for researchers to jump from school to school and to receive permission from their original campus and funding agencies to take grants with them,” Seligman said.
“Universities are extremely collegial and collaborative and hardly ever get into disputes.”
Aisen expressed his certainty that the present complications will not have any serious effect on Alzheimer’s research in the long-run.
USC’s intention with taking Aisen and his colleagues aboard for the advancement of Alzheimer’s research has been in question, Aisen said. UCSD, among other public universities, worry that largely endowed private institutions like USC are offering higher salaries to talented faculty to better their position in the life sciences research fields.
Currently, UCSD, which received $390 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health last year, has a better reputation in this field than USC, according to U.S. News & World Report.
“We have to be at places where the conversations [in biomedicine] are the best. And San Diego is one of those places,” Provost Michael Quick said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
I’m glad USC countersued. Reviewing both the complaint and counterclaim, it is apparent UCSD is engaging in classic anti-trust behavior by doing everything in its power to prevent USC from competing in San Diego. UCSD is not immune to federal anti-trust laws. It has been using code words like “lack of collaboration” and “buying its way” to describe USC’s efforts to establish a foothold in San Diego. UCSD’s anti-competitive activities include contacting USC’s potential partners in La Jolla and elsewhere, entering into agreements with those entities and/or interfering with USC’s prospective business relationships. UCSD is essentially trying to corner the life sciences market in San Diego. That UCSD sued Dr. Aisen personally also speaks volumes about its tactics to destroy his personal financial credit. USC did the right thing by suing UCSD’s medical dean, who has been the anti-competitive cheerleader for UCSD. UCSD’s problem is that, for decades, it has overly depended upon federal and state taxpayers to fund research; its endowment is tiny and illustrates the school is too leveraged and dependent on federal tax dollars. More importantly, by suing Dr. Aisen, UCSD is sending a clear but chilling message that it will sue other academics who come to UCSD and then, years later, decide to leave for greener pastures. Further, that most of the companies that funded the subject Alzheimer’s research have followed Dr. Aisen’s team to USC speaks volumes as to the merits of Dr. Aisen’s claims that UCSD was poorly managing the funding and program, regardless of whether UCSD owns the relevant data. (And, btw, Dr. Aisen has a license and other rights to that data in at least two of the contracts at issue, so the claims he committed cyber crimes are wrong.) Finally, Quinn Emanuel is one of L.A.’s most respected — and feared – litigation firms with a reputation for “scorched-earth” discovery tactics. USC and Dr. Aisen’s team are in good hands.