Opinion ID: 782518
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Remaining Twelve Categories of Information

Text: 44 The district court found Guy Carpenter had proven that the other twelve categories of confidential information qualified as trade secrets. The court held, however, that Guy Carpenter failed to satisfy either the second or third elements of its misappropriation claim because it failed to produce evidence Provenzale (1) breached a confidential relationship or (2) used Guy Carpenter's trade secrets. 45 Guy Carpenter asserts that a breach of the confidential relationship and the use of trade secrets should be inferred because it was probable that Provenzale would use the trade secrets. In Rugen v. Interactive Bus. Sys., 864 S.W.2d 548, 552 (Tex.App. 1993), the court inferred that a former employee's possession of a trade secret and employment by a competitor, where the former employee operated the competitor, made it probable that the former employee would use the trade secrets for her benefit to the detriment of the former employer. See also T-N-T Motorsports v. Hennessey Motorsports, Inc., 965 S.W.2d 18, 21-22 (Tex.App.1998). Provenzale responds that there is no reason to infer he would use Guy Carpenter's trade secrets for four reasons: (1) Provenzale testified he had not taken any confidential information with him; (2) Guy Carpenter admitted that employees it had hired away from Benfield Blanch were able to service customers without using their former employer's confidential information; (3) insofar as Guy Carpenter's trade secrets covered analytic output of proprietary software, Provenzale went to work for a competitor that had its own analytic tools already in place; and (4) the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, completely altered the reinsurance market, such that any confidential information Provenzale might have left with in July 2001 is completely out-of-date. 46 The district court's conclusion that success on the merits was unlikely is supported by the four points raised by Provenzale. In the face of imprecise claims and undeveloped evidence from Guy Carpenter, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction on Guy Carpenter's misappropriation of trade secrets claim as it relates to the twelve groups of trade secrets.