With the 11th Circuit’s decision boxing him in, Judge Acker issued an Order today granting Renfroe a partial Summary Judgment on their claim the Rigsby sisters breached their employment agreement and set a pre-trial hearing for January 09, 2009.
Acker’s Order also granted the Rigsby motion for Summary Judgment and Dismissed with Prejudice the Renfroe case claiming the sisters violated the Alabama Trade Secrets Act.
Let’s leave Acker in the 11th Circuit box for a moment and move to his decision on the alleged violation of the Alabama Trade Secrets Act and the related Memorandum Opinion
There are cross-motions for partial summary judgment on Renfroe’s claim that the Rigsbys violated the Alabama Trade Secrets Act (“ATSA”), Ala. Code §§ 8-27-1, et seq., by disclosing documents illegally accessed from the computers of State Farm, the customer of Renfroe. Renfroe’s ATSA claim is plagued with problems…
First, the court is not convinced that ATSA was designed tocover a fact situation, or a document theft, like this one…Second, the Rigsbys assert that Renfroe lacks standing to assert a claim under ATSA because Renfroe did not own the stolen documents and, therefore, did not own any “trade secrets” contained within them…The Rigsbys next argue that ATSA did not govern their conduct because what they did undisputedly took place in Mississippi, and that ATSA does not apply extra-territorially…
The court finds that there is no extra-territorial reach for ATSA, and that the mere fact that the Rigsbys were employed by a company with its principal place of business in Alabama cannot lead to the conclusion that the Rigsbys’s conduct in Mississippi is governed by an Alabama law that may or may not proscribe their conduct…
For these separate and several reasons, the Rigsbys’s motion for partial summary judgment on the ATSA claim will be granted, and Renfroe’s counter-motion will be denied.
In Acker’s decision to grant Renfroe partial summary judgment on the claimed violation of the employment contract, you clearly see the box provided by the 11th Circuit.
When, at the beginning of the case, the court granted a preliminary injunction mandatorily enjoining the Rigsbys to return the stolen documents, the court necessarily found that there was, in fact, a binding contract between Renfroe and the Rigsbys, that the contract contained a confidentiality agreement, and that there was a substantial likelihood that Renfroe would prevail on its claim that the confidentiality agreement had been breached.
There was then, and there is now, no dispute about the meaning of the operative words in the employment agreement. The import of those words not only was addressed by this court when the preliminary injunction was issued, but the same words were analyzed by the Eleventh Circuit in its opinion affirming this court’s grant of preliminary injunction.
The Eleventh Circuit readily found that the contract was valid and enforceable and that the Rigsbys’s proposed excuses for breaching it were ineffectual. After pointing out the importance of the confidentiality provision, and of the Rigsbys’s written acknowledgment that Renfroe would suffer “immediate and irreparable damage and loss” upon any breach of that provision, the Eleventh Circuit held:
Having concluded that Renfroe is substantially likely to prevail on its breach-of-contract claim, we turn briefly [etc.] E.A. Renfroe & Co., Inc. v. Moran, 249 Fed. Appx. 88, 92 (11th Cir.2007)(emphasis supplied).
Acker’s Order provides the summary of his decision.
In accordance with the accompanying memorandum opinion, the court finds that there are no disputes of material fact with respect to plaintiff’s claim as to the liability of defendants for breach-of-contract, and that plaintiff is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on such claim. Accordingly, plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment as to said claim is GRANTED, and defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to said claim is DENIED. Plaintiff must still prove damages proximately caused by the said breach.
There’s more to report and I’ll be back shortly with additional information and discuss why I believe the Rigsby sisters have a basis for appeal.