Marketer Drops Lawsuit against VIC Portfolio Company

Remember the breach of contract lawsuit we told you about a few weeks ago targeting Nutraceutical Innovations Inc. and Fayetteville businessman Dr. Calvin Goforth? At the plaintiff’s request, it has been dropped.

Fayetteville lawyer Debby Winters, the attorney for Kimberley Fuller, notified Washington County Circuit Court Judge Doug Martin in a court filing July 1 that Fuller wished to drop her complaint. The judge dismissed the case July 5 without prejudice, which means Fuller can refile the lawsuit at any time.

Nutraceutical is a portfolio company of VIC Technology Venture Development, the private firm headquartered in Fayetteville’s Arkansas Research and Technology Park. Goforth is VIC’s founder and CEO.

In Fuller’s original complaint filed June 2, she claimed Nutraceutical and Goforth owed her company nearly $20,000 for conducting market research in support of two Nutraceutical products.

Nutraceutical hired Fuller’s company, Discovery Associates LLC, to perform the research in March 2014, just a few months after Fuller started her own business.

When Fayetteville attorney Suzanne Clark filed an answer on Goforth’s behalf on July 1, she also filed a motion to have Winters removed from the suit for a conflict of interest.

Winters was VIC’s chief legal counsel from 2007 until her termination in January 2012. Fuller also worked at VIC from 2006 to 2012 as director of market research and business development.

“We are pleased that the lawsuit was dropped, but it was unfortunate that it was ever filed in the first place,” Goforth said in an emailed statement. “Other than the never-disputed fact that Ms. Fuller holds a convertible note from Nutraceutical Innovations, the allegations contained within the lawsuit were wholly without merit.”

Winters didn’t respond to Whispers’ request for comment on why her client asked that the case be dropped.