Tag: 12(b)(6)

Marital Privilege Argument Premature in Insurance Broker’s Trade Secrets Case Against Former Agent – IL ND

The district court in Cornerstone Assurance Group v. Harrison discusses the Federal court plausibility standard for pleadings and considers whether Illinois’s marital privilege statute defeats an insurance broker’s trade secrets suit against a former employee.

The defendant signed an employment contract that contained a confidentiality provision covering plaintiff’s financial information, marketing plans, client leads, prospects, and lists along with fee schedules, and computer software.  Plaintiff paid defendant $1,000 not to disclose plaintiff’s confidential information.

The plaintiff alleged the defendant disclosed the information – including a protected client list and private medical data – to her husband, who worked for a competing broker.  The plaintiff alleged the competitor used that information to recruit plaintiff’s employees.  The defendant moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims under Rule 12(b)(6).

Trade Secrets Claim

Denying the motion, the court first looked to the pleading requirements of a claim under the Illinois Trade Secrets Act (ITSA), 765 ILCS 1065/1, et seq.To prevail on a claim for misappropriation of a trade secret under the [ITSA], the plaintiff must demonstrate (1) the information at issue was a trade secret, (2) that the information was misappropriated, and (3) that it was used in the defendant’s business.

ITSA defines a trade secret as information, data, a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, drawing, process, financial data, or list of actual or potential customers or suppliers, that is (1) sufficiently secret to derive economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and (20 is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy or confidentiality. 765 ILCS 1065/2(d)

The law does not confer trade secret status for information “generally known or understood within an industry even if not to the public at large.”  A plaintiff also foregoes trade secret protection where it fails to take affirmative measures to keep others from using the proprietary information.  In addition to these statutory guideposts, Illinois case law considers several additional factors that inform the trade secrets analysis.  These include: (1) the extent to which the information is known outside of the plaintiff s business; (2) the extent to which the information is known by employees and others involved in the plaintiff s business; (3) the extent of measures taken by the plaintiff to guard the secrecy of the information; (4) the value of the information to the plaintiff s business and to its competitors; (5) the amount of time, effort and money expended by the plaintiff in developing the information; and (6) the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others.  No one factor predominates but the more factors present increases plaintiff’s chances of establishing a trade secret.

The Court held the plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to show that some of the information allegedly misappropriated was a trade secret.  Under Illinois law, a list of actual or potential customers as well as insurance claims data can qualify as a trade secret under certain facts.  The plaintiff’s Complaint allegations that it spent several years developing the confidential data at issue and that it wasn’t accessible to others satisfied the pleading requirements for a valid trade secrets case.

Marital Communications Privilege

The Court held it was too soon to address Defendant’s argument that the marital privilege statute negated Plaintiff’s claims.  The marital privilege attaches to husband and wife communications.  But a spouse’s communication to a third party waives the privilege and a litigant is free to use that communication against its adversary.  The marital privilege also doesn’t extend to subsequent uses of protected communication.  See 735 ILCS 5/8-801 (husband and wife may not testify to communication or admission made by either of them to each other.)

While the court opted to table the privilege issue until after discovery, the Court noted the plaintiff alleged the defendant disclosed trade secrets not only to her husband but to a third party – the husband’s employer. Since the Complaint established it was possible the defendant shared information with someone other than her husband, the marital privilege didn’t bar plaintiff’s claims at the case’s pleading stage.

Afterwords

This case represents a court flexibly applying Rule 12’s plausibility standard in the trade secrets context.  Solidifying the proposition that a plaintiff doesn’t have to plead evidence or try its case at the pleading stage, the Court makes clear that disclosure of a trade secret to even a single competitor can satisfy the misappropriation prong of a trade secrets claim.  Harrison also shows the marital communications privilege won’t apply to information that escapes a husband-wife union.  A complaint’s plausible allegation that protected information went beyond the confines of the marital union nullifies the marital privilege.

N.D.Ill. Examines Res Judicata and Claim-Splitting Doctrines

In Tank v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 2013 WL 4401375, the Northern District of Illinois examined the reach of the res judicata and claim-splitting doctrines in an employment discrimination suit. 

In 2012, the plaintiff sued T-Mobile, his former employer, for employment discrimination and for violating the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. (the “TCA”), which outlaws employers accessing “customers’ proprietary network information” (basically, “cell phone records”) without the customer’s consent.  Plaintiff’s TCA count claimed the defendant accessed plaintiff’s cell phone records without his permission while looking into plaintiff’s EEOC claim against the telecom giant. 

This was plaintiff’s second discrimination suit against T-Mobile. In 2011, he filed similar Federal employment discrimination claims (but not a TCA claim) which were defeated on T-Mobile’s summary judgment motion.  After plaintiff filed his second action in 2012, T-Mobile moved to dismiss on the basis of res judicata and improper claim-splitting.  T-Mobile argued that plaintiff’s 2012 case was based on the same operative facts as his 2011 suit (which T-Mobile won on summary judgment) and so the 2012 case was defeated by res judicata’s and claim-splitting.

Held: The Court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s TCA claim and granted the motion to dismiss plaintiff’s employment discrimination claims.

Reasoning/Rules: 

Res judicata and claim-splitting both aim to prevent repetitive and duplicative litigation; ensuring that all factually-related claims are brought in a single case. 

Res judicata’s elements:

(1) an identity of causes of actions (that is, the second claim is based on the same core of operative facts as the previously litigated “first” claim);

(2) identity of parties or their privies (a fact-specific inquiry decided on case-by-case basis); and

(3) a final judgment on the merits (final judgment = judgment based on the parties’ legal rights as opposed to matters of practice, procedure, jurisdiction or form)  

Claim-Splitting Doctrine

Related to res judicata, claim-splitting differs in only a single sense: while res judicata contemplates a final judgment and separate, sequential lawsuits, claim-splitting applies to two currently pending lawsuits that have not yet reached the final judgment stage.  The claim-splitting doctrine provides the basis for dismissal where two pending lawsuits are duplicative of  one another.    

The ‘Single Core of Operative Facts’ Element 

The Court held that plaintiff’s TCA claims (based on T-Mobile’s (alleged) cell phone snooping) were not barred by res judicata or claim-splitting.  While both the 2011 and 2012 suits pled T-Mobile’s discriminatory conduct, only the 2012 suit alleged T-Mobile violated the TCA’s privacy provisions by scouring plaintiff’s cell phone.  As a result, the Court found that the core of underlying facts giving rise to the 2011 suit (which exclusively involved employment discrimination claims) differed from the 2012 suit (which additionally involved T-Mobile’s violation of the TCA).  *5-6. 

Take-aways: Res judicata and claim-splitting are properly brought as part of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.  The Tank Court gives content to the same claim/same core of operative facts element of res judicata/claim-splitting and shows a willingness to look into factual differences between two separate lawsuits which look on the same on the surface.

Tank provides ammunition to litigants opposing res judicata or claim-splitting pleadings motions by highlighting what a court should focus on when analyzing the same cause/identity of cause action element of the defenses.

Successor Corporation Can’t Enforce Expired Restrictive Covenants

 

Stericycle, Inc. v. Carney, 2013 WL 3671288 (N.D.Ill. 2013) is post-worthy for its useful  gloss on the enforceability of restrictive covenants, Federal pleading requirements and a purchasing corporation’s standing to assert the restrictive covenant rights of its predecessor.

Facts:  In 2007 and 2008, defendant signed employment agreements (the “SEI Agreements”) with SEI, his former employer.  The SEI Agreements contained 2-year non-disclosure and non-solicitation provisions. Plaintiff Stericycle acquired SEI in 2009 as part of a stock purchase. 

Defendant later signed separate employment agreements (the “Stericycle Agreements”) in 2009 and 2011.  In late 2011, defendant resigned and within a month went to work for a competitor in the waste management business. Plaintiff then filed suit to enforce the SEI Agreements and the Stericycle Agreements.

Disposition: Plaintiff’s claims dismissed.  The Court granted the defendants’ 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss plaintiff breach of contract claims based on the SEI Agreements with prejudice (claims can’t be refiled) and the Stericycle Agreements without prejudice (claims can be refiled).

Reasoning: The Court dismissed the SEI Agreements because there the two-year restrictive covenants contained in them expired by their terms.  The record demonstrated that that defendant stopped working for SEI in January 2009 and didn’t begin working for his current employer, an SEI competitor, until October 2011 – well past the two-year restrictive period. 

But putting aside the expiration of the contractual two-year restrictions, the Court did hold that the plaintiff – the successor entity – had standing to enforce the SEI Agreements.  That’s because they expressly provided that their restrictive covenants were enforceable by SEI’s successors and assigns.  And since plaintiff was a successor to SEI, plaintiff had standing to sue on the SEI Agreements. 

 The Court also struck plaintiff’s claims which alleged defendant’s breach of the Stericycle Agreements.  The Court found plaintiff’s allegations too conclusory – even under Federal notice pleading rules – to allege that defendant breached the Stericycle Agreements’ non-disclosure terms.  

Plaintiff pled no facts to plausibly suggest that  defendant violated the non-disclosure provisions. The Court also held that to adequately plead breach of a non-compete covenant, the plaintiff must do more than simply say that defendant’s current position is similar to his former position at plaintiff. 

On the issue of whether the Stericycle Agreements’ were enforceable, the Northern Disrtrict stated it couldn’t decide this based only on the complaint’s allegations. 

It cited basic Illinois rules on restrictive covenants: (1) a restrictive covenant will be upheld if it’s a reasonable restraint and supported by consideration; and (2) will be found reasonable only where (a) it’s no greater than necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interest; (b) it doesn’t impose an undue hardship on the employee; and (c) the restriction doesn’t injure the public.  

The Court found there were too many fact questions – such as the covenants’ geographic reach and what business interest plaintiff was trying to protect – that couldn’t be resolved on a  bare complaint (i.e. without any discovery) and declined to find the Stericycle Agreements’ restrictions unreasonable.  

 Take-aways:

(1) The Federal notice pleading standard has some teeth: Plaintiff must do more than regurgitate a cause of action’s elements and must also allege specific facts in support of a given claim;

(2) A successor corporation can enforce a restrictive covenant contained in a predecessor’s employment contract where that contract provides that it’s enforceable by a successor or assignee; and

(3) whether a restrictive covenant is reasonable (and enforceability) will most likely not be decided only on a complaint before discovery is taken.