Litigation

Preliminary Injunction Denied in Trade Secret Case After TRO Granted

By H. William Allen et al.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed denial of a preliminary injunction in CDI Energy Services, Inc. v. West River Pumps, Inc., No. 08-1031 (5/29/09).

CDI sells oilfield equipment. It had one location in North Dakota with three employees. Those employees left CDI to form West River, a competing business. CDI's customers went to West River, and the CDI office went out of business. After obtaining a TRO for trade secret misappropriation and other counts, the district court dissolved the TRO and denied the preliminary injunction.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed, with two interesting holdings. First it held the customer lists were not trade secrets. Because the potential CDI customers was a small number of local oilfield companies, the information would be readily obtainable. Second, the court held no irreparable harm because, since CDI's office was closed, an injunction would do nothing to help them. In other words, CDI had been harmed to such a degree that the harm was no longer irreparable.

Full post as published by Arkansas Business Litigation Blog on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).