[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-11516

____________________

THE HIGHLAND CONSULTING GROUP, INC., 

Plaintiff-Counter Defendant

Appellee,

versus

JESUS FELIX MINJARES SOULE, 

Defendant-Claimant

Counter Claimant-Appellant,

TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORPORATION, et al.,

Defendants-Third Party Defendants.

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____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 9:19-cv-81636-RLR

____________________

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LUCK and HULL, Circuit 

Judges.

HULL, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff The Highland Consulting Group, Inc. (“Highland”), 

a consulting firm, sued defendant Jesus Felix Minjares Soule 

(“Minjares”) for misappropriating its trade secrets under the 

Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)(1). At 

trial, the jury returned a verdict for $1.2 million in favor of plaintiff 

Highland. The district court carefully used a special verdict form 

on which the jury answered questions and made specific findings 

on each element of plaintiff Highland’s claims.

On appeal, defendant Minjares does not challenge the jury’s 

findings that the documents he took contained trade secrets and 

that he misappropriated those trade secrets. Instead, Minjares 

contends that (1) plaintiff Highland failed to prove it was an 

“owner” of those trade secrets, as required by the DTSA, and 

(2) the district court erred in denying his motions for judgment as 

a matter of law, or alternatively for a new trial on this ground.

After careful review of the record, and with the benefit of 

oral argument, we conclude that plaintiff Highland presented 

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sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding on the verdict form 

that plaintiff Highland proved the required ownership by a 

preponderance of the evidence. We thus affirm the judgment in 

favor of plaintiff Highland.

I. TRIAL EVIDENCE

A. Corporate Structure

At trial, plaintiff’s principal witness was James Kerridge, who 

is the founder and 100% owner of “The Highland Consulting 

Group, Inc.,” the named plaintiff. For ease of reference, we call the 

named plaintiff “Highland.”

Plaintiff Highland is a national consulting firm composed of 

senior consultants. Plaintiff Highland also has established various 

“local affiliates” in different countries to make sure that it stays in 

tune with local regulations. Kerridge is also the 100% owner of 

The Plaza Group, Inc., which owns 100% of each of these local 

affiliates. Kerridge testified that the diagram below “accurately 

reflect[s]” the corporate structure:

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The Highland Group Corporate Structure chart shows Kerridge as 

the 100% owner of both (1) the named plaintiff and (2) The Plaza 

Group, Inc. which owns the affiliates.

Defendant Minjares worked as an economic analyst from

2012 to 2019 and signed a “Non-Disclosure, Non-Solicitation[,] and 

Compliance Agreement” as to the confidential information 

obtained during his employment.

B. Plaintiff’s Marketing Name

During trial, Kerridge testified that plaintiff Highland uses 

and markets its services under the marketing name of “The 

Highland Group Consultants.” Specifically, Kerridge testified:

Q: Okay. Mr. Kerridge, the Plaintiff in this case is 

the Highland Consulting Group, Inc., is that 

right? The one who is bringing suit against Mr. 

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Minjares, my client, is an entity called the 

Highland Consulting Group, Inc., correct?

A: Yes.

Q: And in opening, your attorney was showing 

the jury the different participants in this 

process, and we don’t see the name of the Plaintiff, 

the Highland Consulting Group, Inc., in this list. 

Can you explain to me why?

A: This is the -- the Highland Group Consultants is 

the name that we present to the marketplace. The 

name that you are referring to is the legal entity that 

is bringing suit.

(Emphases added). In short, plaintiff “The Highland Consulting 

Group, Inc.,” the legal entity bringing this lawsuit, uses the 

marketing name “The Highland Group Consultants” to market its 

services.

C. Trade Secret Documents

Plaintiff Highland’s marketing name—“The Highland 

Group Consultants”—appeared on hundreds of pages of trade 

secret documents that plaintiff Highland introduced and the jury 

reviewed at trial. The use of plaintiff Highland’s marketing name 

on these documents evinces that plaintiff Highland owned the 

trade secrets in the documents.

The trade secret documents in evidence included (1) part of 

the book called “One Highland,” (2) a 285-page document entitled 

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“Mining Vertical,” and (3) the Prospectus. Minjares does not 

dispute that these particular documents contain trade secrets or 

that he misappropriated them.

Every single page of the One Highland book in evidence 

displays the named plaintiff Highland’s marketing name and logo:

In fact, Kerridge and Brian Saville, plaintiff’s chief financial 

officer (“CFO”), both described “The Highland Group 

Consultants” logo as “the Highland logo.”

Kerridge also testified about the development and content 

of the trade secret documents. Kerridge testified he developed the 

One Highland book because he was concerned that the firm 

“would do business . . . differently” in the different parts of the 

world where it operated. So, Kerridge brought senior people in the 

firm together in a room to develop guidelines, and this book 

contained plaintiff Highland’s guiding principles at a high level of 

generality. Kerridge explained that the One Highland book is “the 

framework for all of our projects.”

The Mining Vertical document also contains “The Highland 

Group Consultants” marketing name and logo at the top of each 

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page. This document outlines the firm’s best practices with respect 

to mining consulting jobs. It was developed by “a specialized team 

of [Highland’s] senior mining focused practitioners, leaders, and 

consultants.” According to Kerridge, the Mining Vertical 

document is the “referral document for our mining teams to give 

them an underpinning of . . . how we do mining projects, [and] . . .

our experiences in mining projects.”

Most pages of the One Highland book and the Mining 

Vertical document—watermarked with “The Highland Group 

Consultants”—also contain “© 2013 The Highland Group” in the 

bottom left corner. The contents of plaintiff Highland’s trade 

secret documents thus were copyrighted under the name “The 

Highland Group.” This indicates that named plaintiff Highland 

used its marketing name—“The Highland Group Consultants”—

along with, and sometimes interchangeably with, the name “The 

Highland Group.”

Another document Kerridge testified about was the 

Prospectus, which also refers to both “Highland” and the 

“Highland Group.” The Prospectus “is a set of instructions, 

algorithms, and outputs” that is used to develop business proposals 

for clients. Kerridge testified that this financial model was 

developed so “that we could use [it] consistently across the country 

and across the world” in preparation of the firm’s proposals.

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D. Plaintiff’s Saucito Project

Tellingly too, these trade secrets were used to complete

consulting projects of the named plaintiff—and not just its affiliates 

across the world.

For example, the named plaintiff Highland was a party to a 

three-week Discovery and Design contract with Fresnillo, PLC 

(“Fresnillo”), a Mexican mining company, at its Saucito mine site. 

Saville, plaintiff’s CFO, testified that the parties to this agreement 

were (1) Fresnillo, and (2) “Highland Consulting Group,” which is 

the named plaintiff here.

To obtain the contract, plaintiff Highland prepared a 

proposal for a three-week Discovery and Design project at 

Fresnillo’s Saucito mine site. The proposal displayed “The 

Highland Group Consultants” logo at the top of each page.

Plaintiff Highland also entered into a mutual confidentiality 

agreement with Fresnillo. That agreement was signed by Saville, 

in his capacity as CFO of “The Highland Consulting Group, Inc.,”

again the named plaintiff here.

On March 5 or 6, 2019, plaintiff Highland began the threeweek Discovery and Design project. Kerridge described Discovery 

and Design as “our analytical process where . . . [w]e define what 

the [client’s] issues are . . . and put together a program on how to 

overcome those barriers.” Discovery and Design precedes the 

implementation phase. Since plaintiff Highland was the 

contracting party, the jury could reasonably infer the One Highland 

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book, the Mining Vertical document, and the Prospectus were 

used, at least in part, for the Discovery and Design project.

At the end of the Discovery and Design phase, Fresnillo 

awarded a $2,992,000 contract for the 36-week project phase to 

HCG Advisors Mexico (“HCG Advisors”), the foreign affiliate in 

Mexico. Saville, plaintiff Highland’s CFO, explained that he used 

HCG Advisors as the contracting party because he wanted to avoid 

the “headache[]” of “double taxation” that can arise when the term 

of a contract is longer than six months. Defendant Minjares was 

the consultant in charge of the “project phase.”

On September 25, 2019, Fresnillo abruptly cancelled the 

Saucito mine project with no explanation. At this time, 

approximately $1,200,000 was left on the contract.

The next day, Minjares resigned and accepted a new job at 

Surge Performance Group (“Surge”), another consulting firm.

Then, on September 30, 2019, Minjares used a corporation 

owned by his family in Mexico to partner with Surge and complete 

the Saucito mine project. Minjares had a 20-to-30% ownership 

interest in his family-owned corporation.

E. Minjares Returns Confidential Information

After he resigned, Minjares was asked in October 2019 “to 

return all company property,” but Minjares did not respond.

Yet, after this litigation commenced, Minjares’s counsel (in 

January 2020) returned five USB drives containing 15.4 gigabytes of 

data, which included the three “principal” trade secret 

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documents—One Highland, the Mining Vertical document, and 

the Prospectus.

The USB drives also contained an “Executive Presentation 

— Nov 2019” slideshow that displayed Surge’s logo but had

“Highland data” from a presentation “prepared to obtain a sale 

from the Fresnillo group.”

As part of this litigation, plaintiff Highland located another 

trade secret document that Minjares never returned. This 

document was a sales presentation entitled “Design” that 

(1) contained “Highland material” developed for the Saucito mine 

project, (2) included “references to Highland,” and (3) displayed 

“The Highland Group Consultants” logo on three slides.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A. Pre-Trial Proceedings

In 2019, plaintiff Highland filed a civil complaint against 

defendant Minjares. Highland’s complaint began with this 

sentence: “Plaintiff, The Highland Consulting Group, Inc. (‘Highland’), 

files this Verified Complaint . . . against Defendant Jesus Felix 

Minjares Soule (‘Minjares’).” (Emphasis added). The complaint 

alleged three counts against defendant Minjares, including a DTSA 

trade secret misappropriation claim (“Count 1”).1

1 We do not address plaintiff’s breach-of-contract claims in Counts 2 and 3 

because on appeal neither party raises any issues related to these claims. We 

also note that Minjares filed a counterclaim and the jury found for Minjares on 

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After discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary 

judgment, which the district court denied.

B. Trial, Verdict, and Renewed Motions

In 2022, the case proceeded to trial.

After both sides rested, Minjares moved for judgment as a 

matter of law, arguing that plaintiff Highland had not presented 

any evidence that it owned the trade secrets and, therefore, plaintiff 

Highland lacked standing to assert its DTSA claim. The district 

court denied that motion.

The district court, however, charged the jury that plaintiff 

Highland was required to prove ownership, as follows: 

To prove that The Highland Consulting Group, Inc. 

owns Mining Practices processes and methodologies 

of One Highland, Discovery & DesignTM methods, 

sales presentations with compilations of prior results, 

pricing formulas, or proprietary Prospectus 

algorithms, it must prove that [these trade secrets] are 

The Highland Consulting Group, Inc.’s property. 

As to Count 1, the district court’s thorough verdict form 

contained 14 interrogatories for the jury to answer. Relevant here, 

the first interrogatory expressly asked the jury to answer this 

question:

that counterclaim but did not award him any damages. On appeal, Minjares 

does not challenge that verdict on his counterclaim.

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[D]o you find by a preponderance of the evidence 

that . . . The Highland Consulting Group, Inc.

own[ed] any of the Mining Practices processes and 

methodologies of One Highland, Discovery & 

DesignTM methods, sales presentations with 

compilations of prior results, pricing formulas, or 

proprietary Prospectus algorithms . . . ?

(Emphasis added).

Notably, the jury was asked if the plaintiff proved it owned 

“any” of the trade secrets. The jury answered “Yes” to this first 

interrogatory. Minjares made no objection to this interrogatory. 

On Count 1, the jury returned a verdict for plaintiff Highland in the 

amount of $1,200,000.

Following the verdict, defendant Minjares renewed his 

motion for judgment as a matter of law and, alternatively, moved 

for a new trial on Count 1. Minjares’s motion reiterated his 

arguments as to standing and ownership. After plaintiff Highland’s 

response, the district court denied the motion.

Minjares timely appealed.

III. DISCUSSION

On appeal, Minjares argues that plaintiff Highland did not 

prove that it—as opposed to one of its affiliates—was the “owner” 

of the trade secrets. And so, he also argues, plaintiff Highland even 

lacked standing to bring this action because it could not show 

injury-in-fact.

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First, we provide an overview of the ownership requirement 

in the DTSA. Second, we explain why Minjares’s arguments fail.

A. The DTSA

The DTSA provides a federal civil cause of action for “[a]n 

owner of a trade secret that is misappropriated . . . if the trade secret 

is related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, 

interstate or foreign commerce.” 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)(1) (emphasis 

added).

The statute defines “owner” as “the person or entity in 

whom or in which rightful legal or equitable title to, or license in, 

the trade secret is reposed.” Id. § 1839(4).

B. Minjares’s Motion for a Judgment as a Matter of Law

Drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff 

Highland, we conclude that the record contains sufficient evidence 

to support the jury’s finding that plaintiff owned “any”—in other 

words, at least one—of the trade secrets involved here.2 Actually, 

the evidence, in the light most favorable to plaintiff Highland, 

2 We review de novo the denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law. 

MidlevelU, Inc. v. ACI Info. Grp., 989 F.3d 1205, 1214 (11th Cir. 2021). “In 

considering the sufficiency of the evidence that supports the jury’s verdict, we 

review the evidence in the light most favorable to, and with all reasonable 

inferences drawn in favor of, the nonmoving party.” Id. (quotation marks 

omitted). “[W]e will reverse only if the facts and inferences point 

overwhelmingly in favor of the moving party, such that reasonable people 

could not arrive at a contrary verdict.” Lamonica v. Safe Hurricane Shutters, Inc., 

711 F.3d 1299, 1312 (11th Cir. 2013) (second alteration adopted).

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demonstrated the plaintiff owned multiple trade secrets

misappropriated by Minjares.

We start with the trade secret documents themselves. Every 

page in evidence from the One Highland book and the Mining 

Vertical document is stamped with “The Highland Group 

Consultants” logo.

To be sure, the named plaintiff in this case is “The Highland 

Consulting Group, Inc.,” not “The Highland Group Consultants.” 

Owner Kerridge, however, explained that (1) “[T]he Highland 

Consulting Group, Inc.”—the plaintiff in this case—is “the legal 

entity that is bringing suit,” but (2) “[T]he Highland Group 

Consultants is the name that we present to the marketplace.” 

(Emphases added). In other words, “The Highland Group 

Consultants” is a marketing name for “The Highland Consulting 

Group, Inc.” just like “Publix” is the marketing name for “Publix 

Super Markets, Inc.” 

Together, this testimony and these documents form an 

evidentiary basis from which the jury could reasonably have found 

that the trade secret documents marked with “The Highland 

Group Consultants” logo were owned by plaintiff The Highland 

Consulting Group, Inc.

In addition, plaintiff’s 100% owner Kerridge testified that he 

and senior members periodically met in person to develop One 

Highland and that the One Highland book was designed to serve 

as a set of guiding principles in order for Highland consultants to 

do business in a consistent manner around the world. A jury could 

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reasonably infer and conclude (1) that Kerridge developed the 

content of One Highland in his role as owner of plaintiff Highland, 

and (2) that a document created by and meant to be used by 

Highland consultants around the world would be owned by the 

plaintiff—“The Highland Consulting Group, Inc.”—rather than 

any single international affiliate.

The record contains similar evidence about the Mining 

Vertical document. Kerridge testified the document was developed 

by senior consultants and meant to serve as best practices and a 

“referral document for [the] mining teams” around the world. 

Each page of the 285-page Mining Vertical document bears the 

logo for “The Highland Group Consultants,” not any international 

affiliate. A reasonable jury could conclude it too was owned by 

plaintiff Highland, not one of the international affiliates.

Plaintiff Highland’s evidence about the Saucito mine project 

also indicated that the plaintiff owned the trade secrets. The 

contract for the three-week Discovery and Design project at the 

Saucito mine site was with “The Highland Consulting Group, 

Inc.,” the named plaintiff. During the Discovery and Design phase, 

plaintiff Highland developed a proposal to address issues at 

Fresnillo’s Saucito mine site. The jury, for example, could have 

inferred that the “guiding principles” in One Highland and the 

“best practices” in the Mining Vertical document were used by 

plaintiff Highland, as the contracting party, because plaintiff 

Highland developed and owned those trade secrets.

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Minjares points out that the trade secrets in the One 

Highland book and the Mining Vertical document were also used

by the foreign affiliates that handled Highland’s consulting projects 

outside the United States. Minjares contends this shows equally 

that any one of the affiliates could have owned them. However, a 

reasonable jury readily could have found that plaintiff Highland 

owned these trade secrets and that its foreign affiliates used them, 

as Kerridge testified, to achieve conformity so that the firm would 

do business in the same way across the world. Indeed, the evidence 

showed that Kerridge as owner of plaintiff Highland developed the 

trade secrets in order to maintain a cohesive and consistent process 

in all of its markets, no matter which entity or affiliate conducted 

the project. The existence of these foreign affiliates, and their use 

of the trade secret documents to conduct consulting projects, does 

not undermine plaintiff Highland’s claim that it owns the trade 

secrets.

Minjares also contends that because Highland failed to show 

it was the owner of the trade secrets, it lacked Article III standing 

to assert a DTSA claim. The essence of Minjares’s contention, 

however, is whether the statutory text of the DTSA “grants 

[Highland] the cause of action that [it] asserts.” See Kroma Makeup 

EU, LLC v. Boldface Licensing + Branding, Inc., 920 F.3d 704, 708 (11th 

Cir. 2019) (quotation marks and emphasis omitted). This question 

is “not of standing at all.” Id. (cleaned up).

The Supreme Court previously referred to this inquiry as 

“statutory standing” or “prudential standing.” Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v.

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Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 128 n.4, 134 S. Ct. 1377, 

1387 n.4 (2014). In Lexmark, the Supreme Court clarified that these 

labels are “misleading, since the absence of a valid . . . cause of 

action does not implicate subject-matter jurisdiction, i.e., the 

court’s statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate the case.” 

Id., 134 S. Ct. at 1387 n.4 (quotation marks omitted). Under 

Lexmark, the question is whether the plaintiff “has a cause of action 

under the statute.” Id. at 128, 134 S. Ct. at 1387.

As the Supreme Court has observed, “a statutory cause of 

action extends only to plaintiffs whose interests fall within the zone 

of interests protected by the law invoked.” Id. at 129, 134 S. Ct. at 

1388 (quotation marks omitted). Because the evidence was 

sufficient to show that Highland owned the trade secrets, we 

conclude that (1) Highland’s interests fell within the zone of 

interest protected by the DTSA, and (2) Highland has a cause of 

action under the DTSA.

C. Minjares’s Motion for a New Trial

In the alternative, Minjares contends that the district court 

erred in denying his motion for a new trial because plaintiff 

Highland failed to establish that it, as opposed to any other entity, 

“owned any of the Alleged Trade Secrets.”3 For the reasons 

3 We review the denial of a motion for new trial under the abuse of discretion 

standard. MidlevelU, Inc., 989 F.3d at 1215. “A district court should grant a 

motion for new trial on evidentiary grounds only when the verdict is against 

the great, and not merely the greater, weight of the evidence.” Id. (quotation 

marks omitted).

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discussed above, we conclude that Minjares has failed to show that 

the jury’s verdict as to ownership is against the weight of the 

evidence.4

IV. CONCLUSION

We conclude that the trial evidence sufficiently supported 

the jury’s finding that plaintiff Highland owned the trade secrets in 

issue. Accordingly, we affirm the denials of Minjares’s motions for 

judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial.

AFFIRMED.

4 While in the district court, Minjares’s motion for a new trial challenged the 

amount of the jury’s verdict as excessive, Minjares’s brief on appeal does not 

raise this issue.

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