{"id":620,"date":"2011-11-04T13:30:13","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/georgia-court-of-appeals-affirms-jury-verdict-on-conversion-claim\/"},"modified":"2011-11-04T13:30:13","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T13:30:13","slug":"georgia-court-of-appeals-affirms-jury-verdict-on-conversion-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/georgia-court-of-appeals-affirms-jury-verdict-on-conversion-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Court of Appeals Affirms Jury Verdict on Conversion Claim and Permanent Injunction based on Deceptive Trade Practices Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trotman v. Velociteach Project Management, LLC<\/em>, \u00a0\u2014 S.E.2d. \u2013, 2011 WL 2697042 (Ga. App. July 13, 2011), involved misconduct by a former instructor of Velociteach Project Managements, LLC (\u201cVelociteach\u201d).<\/p>\n

Velociteach offers project management training courses to students seeking a Project Management Professional credential.\u00a0 Mr. Trotman was a former instructor for Velociteach.\u00a0 When Mr. Trotman left Velociteach, he executed a confidentiality agreement.\u00a0 This agreement required him to return and\/or delete all course materials and electronic presentation slides.\u00a0 It also prohibited him from soliciting Velociteach customers for a period of three (3) years.\u00a0 When Mr. Trotman left, he told Velociteach staff that he had returned or deleted all teaching materials.<\/p>\n

After executing the confidentiality agreement, Mr. Trotman asked Velociteach if he could buy instruction kits to teach the classes on his own.\u00a0 Velociteach declined his request.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, he formed his own company and began teaching training courses on his own.\u00a0 A year later, Velociteach\u2019s founder discovered that Mr. Trotman\u2019s company\u2019s website listed Velociteach customers and also contained marketing copy that the founder had written for Velociteach.\u00a0 He also observed similarities between the two companies\u2019 course details.<\/p>\n

Velociteach filed suit against Mr. Trotman and his new company alleging a host of claims.\u00a0 The case was tried to a jury which awarded $13,750 against Mr. Trotman and $134,000 against CertiFi (Mr. Trotman\u2019s new company).\u00a0 The trial court, based on the verdict, entered a permanent injunction requiring Mr. Trotman to return all Velociteach materials and to abstain from using Velociteach\u2019s customer list.<\/p>\n

On appeal, Mr. Trotman and CertiFi raised several enumerations of error.\u00a0 Mr. Trotman appealed the permanent injunction under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act which the trial court entered based on the jury\u2019s verdict.\u00a0 Reviewing this enumeration, the Court of Appeals recited the various evidence introduced at trial which supported the injunction.\u00a0 Mr. Trotman had created a misleading advertisement stating that CertiFi had developed course content over a four year period, which would have included time he was with Velociteach and not CertiFi.\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. Trotman also solicited former Velociteach students by referencing the Velociteach course and by falsely holding himself out as properly certified.\u00a0 Mr. Trotman also published a list of Velociteach customers and falsely represented them to be CertiFi customers.\u00a0 This evidence supported a jury finding that he violated the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion awarding injunctive relief based on this verdict.<\/p>\n

The Georgia Court of Appeals also rejected Mr. Trotman\u2019s arguments that the scope of the injunction was an abuse of the trial court\u2019s discretion.\u00a0 The injunction was limited to the use of Velociteach\u2019s course materials and customer list.\u00a0 It did not prohibit him from engaging in other teaching activity.\u00a0 The monitoring aspects of the injunction were also not an abuse of discretion.\u00a0 The scope of the injunction was thus reasonable, according to the Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

The Georgia Court of Appeals also reviewed CertiFi\u2019s appeal of the judgment against it based on Velociteach\u2019s conversion claim.\u00a0 CertiFi argued that because Mr. Trotman\u2019s Confidentiality Agreement required him to return or destroy<\/em> any training materials, Velociteach had \u201cabandoned\u201d those materials.\u00a0 Thus, according to CertiFi, by virtue of this alleged \u201cabandonment\u201d, the conversion claim was barred given the absence of Velociteach\u2019s right of possession.\u00a0 The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, finding that the confidentiality agreement in fact evidences Velociteach\u2019s attempt to remain in exclusive control and possession of its confidential information, and not to abandon that information.<\/p>\n

CertiFi also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence on Velociteach\u2019s unjust enrichment claim.\u00a0 CertiFi argued that the damages awarded for Velociteach\u2019s unjust enrichment claim were not supported by any evidence in the record from which it could be determined to a reasonable certainty that CertiFi had realized any gain.\u00a0 The Court of Appeals rejected this argument.\u00a0 The Court of Appeals pointed to evidence that Mr. Trotman had unsuccessfully requested to purchase the instruction kits from Velociteach.\u00a0 As the kits were valued at $1,000 each, the jury could have concluded that Mr. Trotman avoided paying $1,000 in costs for each kit that he used to teach CertiFi students.\u00a0 It was undisputed that Mr. Trotman taught more than three hundred students on behalf of CertiFi.\u00a0 As such, there was sufficient evidence to authorize the jury\u2019s damages award on the unjust enrichment claim.<\/p>\n

The trial court also rejected CertiFi\u2019s appeal of certain evidentiary rulings and its objections to certain jury charges, although the Court of Appeals did reverse an attorney\u2019s fees award against CertiFi because it was not properly apportioned to the sanctionable conduct.<\/p>\n

This case serves as a good reminder of the injunctive relief potentially available under the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act in competition-related cases with appropriate facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trotman v. Velociteach Project Management, LLC, \u00a0\u2014 S.E.2d. \u2013, 2011 WL 2697042 (Ga. App. July 13, 2011), involved misconduct by a former instructor of Velociteach Project Managements, LLC (\u201cVelociteach\u201d). Velociteach offers project management training courses to students seeking a Project Management Professional credential.\u00a0 Mr. Trotman was a former instructor for Velociteach.\u00a0 When Mr. Trotman left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"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":[32,16,29],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGeorgia Court of Appeals Affirms Jury Verdict on Conversion Claim<\/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\/georgia-court-of-appeals-affirms-jury-verdict-on-conversion-claim\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Georgia Court of Appeals Affirms Jury Verdict on Conversion Claim\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trotman v. Velociteach Project Management, LLC, \u00a0\u2014 S.E.2d. \u2013, 2011 WL 2697042 (Ga. App. July 13, 2011), involved misconduct by a former instructor of Velociteach Project Managements, LLC (\u201cVelociteach\u201d). 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