9/12/2023 0 Comments Breach of confidentiality lawsuit![]() The plaintiff must demonstrate a reasonable probability that profits would have been earned except for the defendant's conduct, the court continued. Once the existence of a loss has been established, the court said, recovery should not be denied even if the amount cannot be shown with mathematical precision. ![]() In cases alleging a breach of a contract, a business may recover lost profits if the loss can be ascertained with reasonable certainty, the appeals court first explained. The employer appealed.Īn NDA is a contract. The judge then set aside the jury's verdict, finding that there was no evidence that the employer had been harmed by the employee's use of the software. After receiving additional instructions on damages, including an instruction on nominal damages, the jury awarded the employer $10,000. The jury found that the employee had breached the NDA but initially awarded zero damages. The employer argued that it was entitled to monetary damages for the breach because the employee had disclosed and used the company's confidential information, which had resulted in the company losing business and profits. It alleged that the employee had copied the company's software and was marketing software products that were substantially similar, if not identical, to those that it had developed.Īn expert witness testified at trial that he compared the software products and concluded that several of the employer's trade secrets had been misappropriated. His former employer subsequently sued him for breach of the NDA, among other claims. In April 2011, the employee left his job and formed his own company. He signed an NDA, under which he agreed to hold all confidential information in strict secrecy and not to disclose or use the information without written authorization. ![]() LCP software helps to automate reporting, monitoring and compliance with federal and state-specific prevailing wage laws for public works projects. His duties included building labor compliance program (LCP) software and adding new features as its client base expanded. The employee worked for his former employer from 2005 to 2011. Instead, the former employer was entitled only to nominal damages. However, the employer did not show that it was harmed by the employee's misuse of the information, so it was not entitled to a $10,000 jury award, a California appeals court ruled. A software developer breached a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with his former employer by using confidential information to develop a product he sold to a third party.
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