We are blogging on “Non-competes, Trade Secrets, Fiduciary Duties, and the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine.” Mark Oberti has prepared a detailed paper on all of these issues, which can be found here.
Yesterday, we blogged about INEOS Group Ltd. v. Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., LP, 312 S.W.3d 843 (Tex. App.–Houston [1st Dist.] 2009, no pet.). Here are some other trade secrets cases where courts of appeals found that district courts had not erred in granting temporary injunctions:
• Reliant Hosp. Partners, LLC v. Cornerstone Healthcare Group Holdings, Inc., 374 S.W.3d 488 (Tex. App. – Dallas 2012, pet. filed) (affirming trial court’s decision to issue a temporary injunction in a trade secrets case where a departing executive essentially took his employer’s strategic market plans and gave them all to his new employer).
• IAC, Ltd. v. Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., 160 S.W.3d 191, 203 (Tex. App. –Fort Worth 2005, no pet.) (affirming trial court’s decision to issue an injunction in a trade secrets case).
• Fox v. Tropical Warehouse, Inc., 121 S.W.3d 853, 860 (Tex. App.–Fort Worth 2003, no pet.) (enjoining ex-employee from selling fish to Wal-Mart, his ex-employer’s main customer, because the only way he won the Wal-Mart account was through his misappropriation and use of his ex-employer’s trade secrets).
• T-N-T Motorsports, Inc. v. Hennessey Motorsports, Inc., 965 S.W.2d 18, 21-22 (Tex. App.–Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. dism’d) (affirming grant of temporary injunction against former employees who set up competing business based on their knowledge of their former employer’s confidential information; although ex-employees could stay in business, they could not utilize any of their ex-employer’s trade secrets to do business).
• Rugen v. Interactive Bus. Sys., Inc., 864 S.W.2d 548 (Tex. App.–Dallas 1993, no writ) (grant of temporary injunction against former employee prohibiting employee from using any confidential information obtained from former employer to solicit or transact business with employer’s consultants or customers was not abuse of discretion).
• Collins v. Ryon’s Saddle & Ranch Supplies, Inc., 576 S.W.2d 914, 915-16 (Tex. Civ. App.–Fort Worth 1979, no writ) (affirming temporary injunction prohibiting employee from soliciting or contacting all persons who placed orders with former employer during employee’s term of employment so that the employee “could not benefit from breach of the confidential relationship.”).
• Elcor Chem. Corp. v. Agri-Sul, Inc., 494 S.W.2d 204, 212 (Tex. Civ. App.–Dallas 1973, writ ref’d n.r.e.) (entering injunction against former employees who left plaintiff’s employment and established their own company based on the fruits of their fiduciary breaches and stating that “the equitable cloak of protection must, of necessity, be full and complete so that those who have acted wrongfully and have breached their fiduciary relationship, as well as those who willfully and knowingly have aided them in doing so, will be effectively denied the benefits and profits flowing from the wrongdoing.”).
