Business Court Judges don’t have to issue written Opinions in cases granting Preliminary Injunctions.  (G.S. § 7A-45.3 limits the obligation to issue a written Opinion to rulings rendered per NCRCP 12, 56, 59, and 60).  But even so, new Business Court Judge Conrad chose a case granting a Preliminary injunction (Addison Whitney, LLC v. Cashion, 2017 NCBC 23) to be his first published (numbered) Opinion.

The Plaintiff, Addison Whitney, is a branding company.  Among other things, it creates product names, and has done so for a number of famous companies,  It came up with "Outlook" for Microsoft and "Escalade" for Cadillac.  It has a specialty in creating names for new drugs from pharmaceutical companies. 

Addison Whitney sued the Defendants — all of whom had formerly held top positions at Addison Whitney — after they left en masse and started a competing company.  Several of the Defendants had signed "Confidential Information and Unauthorized Disclosure Agreements" and "Employee Confidentiality Agreements."  One Defendant had signed an Employee Confidentiality Agreement which contained a non-compete provision.  The other Defendants had not signed any document containing a non-compete.

What Were The Trade Secrets?

Addison Whitney argued that it had three separate categories of trade secret information. 

First, it said that it had "created a database that contains information regarding drug product characteristics for nearly 4,000 drug products on the market.”   This was a mix of publicly accessible information and of information that was "not publicly available and chosen based on the ‘professional judgment’ of Addison Whitney employees." Op. ¶18.  This database was password-protected.

Second, Addison Whitney maintained 246 case studies of work it had done for particular clients which contained non-public information regarding its work and sometimes the confidential information of clients.  These were also password protected. 

Finally, Addison Whitney kept its client and prospective client information on SalesForce, a "customer relationship management program."  Addison Whitney put non-public information about clients’ buying habits and upcoming product into SalesForce.  Only a limited number of Addison Whitney employees had access to its SalesForce platform.

Addison Whitney said that each of these three categories of trade secret information gave it a "competitive advantage."  Judge Conrad ruled that all of these types of information are entitled to trade secret protection..  As to the client information, he said that North Carolina courts "routinely hold that such information is protectable as a trade secret".  Op. ¶35 (citing Drouillard v. Keister Williams Newspaper Servs., Inc., 108 N.C. App. 169, 174, 423 S.E.2d 324, 327 (1992); Computer Design & Integration, LLC v. Brown, 2017 NCBC LEXIS 8 at *27–28).

Establishing Misappropriation Of A Trade Secret

Since the Defendants, as former employees, had legitimate access to the Plaintiff’s trade secrets, the existence of access and opportunity to acquire them was insufficient to establish misappropriation.

Relying on Judge Bledsoe’s recent opinion in Am. Air Filter Co. v. Price, 2017 NCBC LEXIS 9, at *23, Judge Conrad held that:

there must be substantial evidence (1) that the wrongdoer accessed the trade secret without consent, or (2) of misappropriation resulting in an inference of actual acquisition or use of the trade secret.

Op. ¶38.

Access without consent can be shown by "showing that an employee continued to access trade secrets after receiving a job offer from a competitor and then later accepted the offer"  Op. ¶39.

The "relevant inquiry," per Judge Conrad, was "when Defendants’ plan to resign and to open their own competing business became sufficiently concrete to render continued access to trade secrets unauthorized."  Op. ¶39.

Since the Defendants told others at the company in December 2016 that they were planning to resign, Judge Conrad ruled that was the point after which their trade secret access became unauthorized.

After that point, they obtained copies of the case studies, a list of clients with open opportunities, and a list of prospective clients.  They also accessed a number of other documents both before and after resigning.  These included accessed "client brand guidelines, market research, linguistic reports, naming strategy briefs, and client strategy presentations.”  Op. ¶25. Continue Reading First Published Opinion From New Business Court Judge Conrad

in a significant employment law case, the Fourth Circuit ruled last Friday that an employer may decline employment to a prospective employees due to her having made FLSA charges against a previous employer. The case, decided 2-1 over a strong dissent from Judge King, is Dellinger v. Science Applications International Corp.

Dellinger had sued her then current employer for a Fair Labor Standards Act violation, and applied to the Plaintiff, Science, during the lawsuit proceedings for a new position.  Science offered Dellinger a job, and requested that she inform it of any civil actions to which she was a party as a condition of her security clearance. Upon learning of the FLSA charges, Science withdrew its offer.  Dellinger sued, alleging that Science had taken its action in retaliation to her FLSA charge.

Her case was dismissed by the district court, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

The FLSA prohibits retaliation "against any employee" who has sued to enforce the Act.  The Act defines an "employee" as "any individual employed by an employer."  Judge Niemeyer, after wading through other provisions of the FLSA, held that "Dellinger could only sue Science Applications if she could show that she was an employee and that Science Applications was her employer."  According to the majority, no court has extended FLSA’s anti-retaliation protections to prospective employees.

Dellinger argued that a ruling against her would give prospective employers the license to discriminate against prospective employees for having made FLSA claims in the past.  Judge Niemeyer said that he was "sympathetic" to this argument, but that:

The notion. . . that any person who once in the past sued an employer could then sue any prospective employer claiming that she was denied employment because of her past litigation would clearly broaden the scope of the FLSA beyond its explicit purpose of fixing minimum wages and maximum hours between employees and employers. We are, of course, not free to broaden the scope of a statute whose scope is defined in plain terms, even when "morally unacceptable retaliatory conduct" may be involved. Ball v. Memphis Bar-B-Q Co., 228 F.3d 360, 364 (4th Cir. 2000). 

Op. at p.9.

The holding was "that the FLSA gives an employee the right to sue only his or her current or former employer and that a prospective employee cannot sue a prospective employer for retaliation."

Continue Reading Fourth Circuit Authorizes Retaliation By Prospective Employers Against FLSA Claimants

The Business Court granted summary judgment last week to a company and dismissed claims brought by its former CEO for breach of a severance agreement, fraud, and unfair and deceptive trade practices.

In McKinnon v. CV Industries, Inc., the defendant (CVI) owned a number of subsidiaries which manufactured, among other things, high-end residential furniture (Century) and

An award of damages for breach of a noncompete agreement, like any other damages award, requires evidentiary support.  In a judgment issued yesterday after a bench trial, the Business Court awarded the plaintiffs nominal damages absent such evidence.

In HILB Rogal & Hobbs Co. v. Sellars, the Court faced a common factual scenario:  a former vice president

The adequacy of the consideration for a covenant not to compete entered into after the commencement of employment was the issue in Hejl v. Hood, Hargett, & Associates, Inc., decided by the Court of Appeals today.

In Hejl, the employer dealt with the consideration requirement by paying Hejl $500 to sign the non-compete.  Hejl

Can a confidentiality agreement be too broad to be enforced?  The North Carolina Business Court said it can be, under some circumstances, in Covenant Equipment Corp. v. Forklift Pro, Inc.

Before you keep reading, know that the case involved South Carolina, not North Carolina, law. North Carolina law on this point looks to be pretty