White Bird Clinic sues Willamette Valley Crisis Care over misuse of trade secrets, copyright infringement

Eugene’s White Bird Clinic is suing a rival nonprofit, Willamette Valley Crisis Care, over copyright infringement and the stealing of trade secrets.

WVCC was founded after White Bird shuttered CAHOOTS services in Eugene in April. The new nonprofit hopes to launch a similar mobile crisis intervention program , and has multiple former CAHOOTS staff members on board.

White Bird is now alleging that minutes before WVCC co-founder Alese “Dandy” Colehour sent a resignation letter to White Bird earlier this month, they downloaded confidential client information, training manuals and other materials to give to the newer non-profit.

White Bird also is accusing the WVCC of infringing on its CAHOOTS trademark through advertising materials and other public outreach efforts, and of passing off W