Yesterday, we updated you on the 2016 permanent injunction EE systems was awarded by a Judge against Matt Cone for his breach of fiduciary duty as an employee of EE Systems.
Today, we fast forward 3 years to the second lawsuit EE Systems filed against its “former disgruntled employee” Matt Cone, this time for tortious interference with their business dealings.
The Judge’s 2016 injunction against Matt Cone prevented him from engaging in business activity in thirty-one counties in Texas, comprising the totality of the Eagleford Shale. That injunction remained in effect until May 2018. Almost immediately after it expired, Mr. Cone was out for revenge against his employer who had previously defeated him in court.
The plain language of the Plaintiff’s pleading speaks for itself. Save SBISD presents the operative part of the filing here. As you read it, ask yourself two questions:
Is this behavior completely believable based on what we know about Matt Cone?
Is this the type of retaliatory behavior appropriate for School Board Trustee in SBISD?
EE Systems’ Plaintiff’s pleading reads:
“EE Systems is in the business of ... providing electricity through its generators to pumpjacks for its customers in the oil and gas industry.
“Defendant [Matthew T. Cone], a disgruntled former employee of the Plaintiff, has wrongfully and tortiously interfered with the Plaintiff’s business dealings by, among other things, tampering with the Plaintiff’s generators to the point of causing significant damage to Plaintiff’s generators.
“Beginning in 2018, and continuing into 2019, Plaintiff and employees of the Plaintiff began noticing defendant’s suspicious activities near Plaintiff’s generators located at Plaintiff’s storage yard.
“[An] instance of such suspicious activity occurred on March 23, 2019 at 8:30 PM. At that hour, after dark, a pump jack operator saw a mystery vehicle approach the pad site. When the operator followed the Defendant’s vehicle, he was able to recover the Defendant’s license plate number (Texas: JYX 1801), confirming the Defendant’s vehicle was the vehicle approaching the pad site.
“Then, on or about June 25, 2019, Defendant was at the Plaintiff’s storage yard. See Exhibit A. A police report was filed. Why? Because footprints from the location of the Exhibit A truck led to the location of the plaintiff’s spare generator.
Surveillance footage of Defendant’s truck (Exhibit A):
The pleading continued, “It is important to note that Defendant [Matthew Cone] himself has admitted in an audio recording that has been transcribed, that he “burned and turned” on Plaintiff.
“In a recorded telephone call between the Defendant (Matthew Cone) and another, the Defendant (Matthew Cone) admitted that he instructed another individual to deliberately damage Plaintiff’s generators at a customer’s pad site, which resulted in Plaintiff losing the customers business and contract dealings.
“Soon after the Plaintiff lost its customer’s business, Defendant (Matthew Cone) began providing generators to Plaintiff’s former customer, thereby “burning and turning” on the Plaintiff.”
To bolster their already strong physical evidence of Mr. Cone’s tortious interference with their business activities, which included:
Surveillance footage,
Footprints,
License plate numbers, and
Audio recordings of Mr. Cone himself
…EE Systems made clear their intent to ascertain Mr. Cone’s location at other pad sites that had experienced equipment failures.
In discovery, they asked AT&T for his cell phone locations on these specific dates when damage occurred:
EE Systems had him dead to rights (again), so what did Mr. Cone do? He threw a fit.
For the next year and a half, Mr. Cone tried every legal trick he could think of to keep his location on those dates to himself, including lawyer-shopping which delayed his hearings. He changed representation 3 times.
In the end, though, EE Systems persisted. They continued to diligently demand Mr. Cone’s cell records, and when it became clear the Judge was going to permit this discovery, Mr. Cone settled with EE Systems in early 2021 (when he was having other legal issues).
In many ways, the allegations in this suit are the most concerning we have read so far. This suit alleges trespassing, vandalism, interference with operations, etc. If true, they are much more “physical world” activities than anything we have uncovered so far.
So, determine for yourself if the type of person that gets sued for activities like this is the type of person you want serving on your School Board.
We will let John Perez, Mr. Cone’s No. 1 fan, close this one out…
Complete filings below: