The Inevitable Disclosure of Trade Secrets Under Texas Law

Commentators have described inevitable disclosure as the following:

There are circumstances in which trade secrets inevitably will be used or disclosed, even if the defendant swears that he or she will keep the information confidential. Courts applying the doctrine have differed over its reach and the circumstances required for its application, but, generally speaking, the doctrine applies when a defendant has had access to trade secrets and then defects to the trade secret owner's competition to perform duties so similar that the court believes that those duties cannot be performed without making use of trade secrets relating to the previous affiliation.

Linda K. Stevens, Trade Secrets & Inevitable Disclosure, 36 TORT & INS. L. J. 917, 929 (Summer 2001).

Some form of an inevitable disclosure argument is usually made when a Plaintiff is attempting to obtain a temporary restraining order or injunction to enforce a non-compete. The Texas Supreme Court has never recognized the doctrine.

In 1999, the Dallas Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion stated: "this Court has recognized that a former employee may be enjoined from using or disclosing the former employer's confidential or proprietary information if the employee is in a situation where use or disclosure is probable." Conley v. DSC Communs. Corp., No. 05-98-01051-CV, 1999 Tex. App. LEXIS 1321 (Tex. App. Dallas --- 1999, no pet.)(not published).

That opinion stated the Dallas court was not adopting the inevitable disclosure doctrine. Whether "probable disclosure" is actually a viable theory under Texas law remains unresolved by the the Texas Supreme Court.

Read David Knight's analysis of a recent Ohio inevitable disclosure case here.

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