The recently published Connecticut Law Tribune article, “109-Day Trade Secrets Trial Ends in Mixed Verdict, but Fight Continues,” features the contentious, complex trade secret trial that Partners Joseph Fortner and Jennifer Pedevillano handled for defendant, Indue Sales & Services, a Wisconsin company that manufactures and installs industrial coating systems. Joe and Jen secured judgment in favor of the client after 109 days of evidence (21 of which were virtual) over 31 months.
The plaintiff in the matter is a manufacturer of floor coating products for sale to contractors, including a cementitious urethane, which brought suit against a former chemist and others with whom he consulted, claiming that the employee misappropriated the plaintiff’s alleged trade secrets in his post-employment work. Indue Sales & Services engaged the chemist to assist in developing its own urethane cement for its own use.
After an initial phase regarding the existence and scope of the Plaintiff’s alleged trade secrets, the trial turned to whether any of the ten defendants had engaged in misappropriation, and testimony proceeded through numerous witnesses and documents. The HS trial team was successful in convincing the Court to hold a demonstration of each of the products at issue, and in part based upon what the Court observed, and expert testimony on behalf of our client, the Court issued a Memorandum of Decision which in detail found our witnesses and expert credible, and that Indue had not misappropriated the Plaintiff’s trade secrets. While the case will proceed to a remedies phase for some of the defendants, judgment has been entered in favor of the Firm’s client.
Not only was the case itself complex and hotly contested, but it was groundbreaking for the State courts in Connecticut for the extensive use of videoconference technology for the presentation of evidence (including expert testimony, documents, videos, and fact witnesses), including through witnesses located as far away as Wisconsin and Minnesota.