COLUMBIA CITY — Two local orthopedic companies dedicated to providing specialized products for children are battling it out in a Whitley County courthouse over what one company says is industrial espionage and the other is claiming is professional bullying.

OrthoPediatrics Corp., a bio-science orthopedic company with headquarters at 2850 Frontier Drive in Warsaw, alleges a former employee, Robert von Seggern, defected to rival WishBone Medical, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and then provided product secrets to his new employer. The company filed what is known as a sanction motion in Whitley County Superior Court. The plaintiff issued a press release and WishBone Medical answered with a statement of its own.

WishBone Medical Chief Executive Officer Nick Deeter said the plaintiff is responding to his company’s innovations by trying to use deeper pockets to browbeat WishBone into submission.

“Both the motion and OrthoPediatric’s case as a whole are without merit and OP knows it,” Deeter said in a press release. “OP is merely trying to outspend us on lawyers. We have new, innovative and better orthopedic products for kids. We know it. They know it. It’s really that simple.” Deeter gave insight into von Seggern’s departure from OrthoPediatrics.

“It was one of those things where they really weren’t treating him very well,” said Deeter. “They were going public and they were looking at getting rid of some of their higher priced people.” Deeter said the departure ended as a mutual agreement between employer and employee.

In the lawsuit, OrthoPedics alleges that “von Seggern stole OrthoPedic’s trade secrets and confidential information and then turned those over to WishBone Medical for its use in developing pediatric orthopedic products.”

According to Daniel Gerritzen, OrthoPediatric’s vice president and general counsel, “OrthoPediatrics welcomes legitimate competition because that means more kids with pediatric orthopedic conditions will have greater opportunities to be helped. However, we will not tolerate individuals or entities misappropriating our property, in part, to leapfrog years of design and testing work and avoid the significant monetary expense of bringing competing products to market.”

In the lawsuit, OrthoPediatrics claims the alleged violation is related to products known as Trauma and Deformity Correction medical devices. Gerritzen said the company would not add any additional comments.

Deeter compared the court battle to a biblical story involving a young man pitted against a giant. “It’s really a David and Goliath story,” he said.

Deeter went on to explain the nature of OrthoPediatrics’ most recent filing of a sanctions motion.

“It’s just a crazy request,” he said. “They are trying to get electronic access to all of our computers and cell phones. It’s just a sucker punch they came at us with.”

Deeter said the lawsuit is two years old originated just weeks after he founded the company. “It’s silly because there’s really nothing that they have that I’d want. They have older products and older technology that they’ve copied from other companies. They’re scared to death because they don’t know what we’re doing.”

Deeter said his competitor had a corner on the pediatric orthopedic market for more than a decade and said when competitors began to emerge, the company’s strategy was to bully those challengers into submission.