{"id":592,"date":"2010-09-02T14:05:03","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/bakery-executive-gets-a-rise-out-of-former-employer\/"},"modified":"2010-09-02T14:05:03","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:05:03","slug":"bakery-executive-gets-a-rise-out-of-former-employer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/bakery-executive-gets-a-rise-out-of-former-employer\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakery Executive Gets a Rise Out of Former Employer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Bakery Fears Disclosure of \u201cNooks and Crannies\u201d Secret<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When executive Chris Botticella left his employment with Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. (\u201cBimbo Bakeries\u201d), maker of the popular Thomas\u2019 brand of english muffins, to join competing bakery Hostess Brands, Inc. (\u201cHostess\u201d), his former employer sued.\u00a0 Citing Botticella\u2019s high-level knowledge of its confidential information, products and business strategies, Bimbo Bakeries asked the court to enjoin him from working for Hostess until its trade secret misappropriation claim could be resolved at trial.\u00a0 Bimbo Bakeries was particularly concerned because Botticella was one of only seven people with enough knowledge to independently replicate the \u201cnooks and crannies\u201d in Thomas\u2019 English Muffins.\u00a0 The trial court issued the requested injunction.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In an opinion issued on July 27, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the injunction issued by the district court.\u00a0 The Third Circuit agreed that, under the doctrine of inevitable disclosure, Botticella should be barred from working for Hostess pending trial.\u00a0 <em>Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella<\/em>, No. 10-1510, slip op. at 3 (3d Cir. Jul. 27, 2010).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Under the doctrine of inevitable disclosure, a court can bar an employee from working for his former employer\u2019s competitor if it would inevitably lead to the disclosure of the former employer\u2019s trade secrets.\u00a0 This doctrine takes traditional trade secret claims a step further, as it does not require proof that an employee actually <em>has<\/em> misappropriated any of his former employer\u2019s trade secrets \u2013 it simply requires a showing that such misappropriation is likely to occur.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In discussing the proper standard to apply in <em>Bimbo Bakeries<\/em>, the Third Circuit explained that Bimbo Bakeries did not need to show that it was \u201cvirtually impossible\u201d for Botticella to work for Hostess without disclosing trade secrets.\u00a0 <em>Bimbo Bakeries<\/em>, slip op. at 25-26.\u00a0 Rather, the court explained, an injunction would be appropriate where there was a \u201csufficient likelihood or substantial threat of disclosure of a trade secret.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Id. <\/em>at 26.\u00a0 The Third Circuit agreed that, given the similarities between Botticella\u2019s position at Bimbo Bakeries and his proposed new position with Hostess, such a threat existed.\u00a0 <em>Id. <\/em>at 33.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The <em>Bimbo Bakeries <\/em>case applied Pennsylvania law and is not binding in Georgia.\u00a0 Indeed, Georgia courts have not explicitly recognized the doctrine of inevitable disclosure (although it has arguably been recognized implicitly).\u00a0 Nevertheless, the reasoning applied by the Third Circuit in <em>Bimbo Bakeries<\/em> is instructive for Georgia employers and practitioners.\u00a0 The Third Circuit applied the same line of reasoning used by the Georgia Supreme Court in <em>Essex Group, Inc. v. Southwire Co.<\/em>, 269 Ga. 553, 501 S.E.2d 501 (1998), when it implicitly adopted the inevitable disclosure doctrine.\u00a0 In <em>Essex<\/em>, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed an injunction in favor of a cable and wire company that had invested $2 million to develop a logistics system that gave it a significant competitive advantage over other similar companies.\u00a0 <em>Essex<\/em>, 269 Ga. at 558, 501 S.E.2d at 506.\u00a0 When the employee who had headed the system design team left to join a competitor, his former employer obtained an injunction to prevent him from working in the competitor\u2019s logistics department.\u00a0 <em>Id.<\/em> at 553, 502.\u00a0 Implicit in the Supreme Court\u2019s opinion was the reasoning that the former employer\u2019s trade secret logistics system would inevitably be disclosed if the employee worked in a similar capacity for a competitor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When seeking injunctions against high-level former employees who leave to work for a competitor, Georgia employers may wish to refer to the Third Circuit\u2019s rationale in <em>Bimbo Bakeries<\/em>, and similar rationales applied in other jurisdictions outside of Georgia.\u00a0 Indeed, research by at least one legal scholar suggests that inevitable disclosure arguments are persuasive despite the fact that Georgia has not explicitly recognized the inevitable disclosure doctrine.\u00a0 <em>See <\/em>Brandy L. Treadway, <em>An Overview of Individual States\u2019 Application of Inevitable Disclosure: Concrete Doctrine or Equitable Tool?<\/em>, 55 SMU L. Rev. 621, 622 (2002) (concluding that courts in states that have not adopted the inevitable disclosure doctrine are nevertheless increasingly embracing inevitable disclosure arguments to grant injunctive relief).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bakery Fears Disclosure of \u201cNooks and Crannies\u201d Secret When executive Chris Botticella left his employment with Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. (\u201cBimbo Bakeries\u201d), maker of the popular Thomas\u2019 brand of english muffins, to join competing bakery Hostess Brands, Inc. (\u201cHostess\u201d), his former employer sued.\u00a0 Citing Botticella\u2019s high-level knowledge of its confidential information, products and business strategies, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[16,29],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bakery Executive Gets a Rise Out of Former Employer - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/bakery-executive-gets-a-rise-out-of-former-employer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bakery Executive Gets a Rise Out of Former Employer - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bakery Fears Disclosure of \u201cNooks and Crannies\u201d Secret When executive Chris Botticella left his employment with Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. 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