Opinion ID: 2805640
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Personal Liability of Morgan

Text: The district court denied Morgan’s motion for JMOL that he was not personally liable for infringement. We review a district court’s denial of JMOL under the law of the regional circuit. Finjan, Inc. v. Secure Computing Corp., 626 F.3d 1197, 1202 (Fed. Cir. 2010). The Eighth Circuit reviews a district court’s grant or denial of JMOL de novo, applying the same standard as the district court. GLOBAL TRAFFIC TECHNOLOGIES v. MORGAN 21 Synergetics, Inc. v. Hurst, 477 F.3d 949, 956 (8th Cir. 2007). To grant a motion for JMOL, we must find that “there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis to support a jury verdict in the non-moving party’s favor.” Id. (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1)). On appeal, Morgan argues that GTT never alleged that Morgan was individually liable as an infringer, only that Morgan was liable as the sole shareholder and director of KME. Morgan also contends that, as KME’s corporate officer, he cannot be found personally liable for infringement absent a finding that the corporate veil should be pierced. GTT responds that it explicitly pled that Morgan was personally liable in its amended complaint and throughout the course of litigation. GTT insists that there was ample evidence that Morgan personally induced infringement under § 271(b). We agree with GTT that it adequately alleged that Morgan was individually liable as an infringer, starting with the complaint and continuing through trial. We also agree with GTT that the jury had a sufficient basis to find that Morgan personally induced infringement based on his own actions, and was therefore directly liable. Accordingly, there was no need to pierce the corporate veil to find Morgan derivatively liable for KME’s infringement. As we explained in Wordtech Systems, Inc. v. Integrated Networks Solutions, Inc., 609 F.3d 1308 (Fed. Cir. 2010), “‘corporate officers who actively assist with their corporation’s infringement may be personally liable for inducing infringement regardless of whether the circumstances are such that a court should disregard the corporate entity and pierce the corporate veil.’” 609 F.3d at 1316 (quoting Manville Sales Corp. v. Paramount Sys., Inc., 917 F.2d 544, 553 (Fed. Cir. 1990)). In this case, GTT presented substantial evidence to indicate that Morgan personally induced customers to perform the patented method in claim 16 of the ’398 patent. See, e.g., J.A. 1757:20– 1760:20 (testifying that he personally helped cities use the 22 GLOBAL TRAFFIC TECHNOLOGIES v. MORGAN EMTRAC system and got his “hands dirty every day, installing, testing, repairing and developing” the EMTRAC GPS product). The jury reasonably found that Morgan is personally liable for his own actions that constituted induced infringement under § 271(b), without piercing the corporate veil. See Wordtech, 609 F.3d at 1316; see also United States v. Trek Leather, Inc., 767 F.3d 1288, 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (en banc) (“[A] person who personally commits a wrongful act is not relieved of liability because the person was acting for another.”). Furthermore, GTT made it clear that it was only al- leging induced infringement against Morgan and all of its evidence of Morgan’s involvement was focused on proving induced infringement. See J.A. 1015:2–4 (“[We are] pursuing individual liability for Rodney Morgan only under an inducement theory under Section 271.”); J.A. 1757:18 (“And, now, we’re talking about indirect infringement.”). Furthermore, Morgan does not challenge the district court’s jury instruction on appeal. 6 6 In Wordtech, this court stated that “the ‘corporate veil’ shields a company’s officers from personal liability for direct infringement that the officers commit in the name of the corporation, unless the corporation is the officers’ ‘alter ego.’” 609 F.3d at 1313. We do not believe this statement represents a departure from the traditional rule that a person is personally liable for his own tortious actions, even if committed as a corporate officer. See Trek Leather, 767 F.3d at 1299 (“It is longstanding agency law that an agent who actually commits a tort is generally liable for the tort along with the principal, even though the agent was acting for the principal. That rule applies, in particular, when a corporate officer is acting for the corporation.” (citations omitted)). Instead, we interpret Wordtech as reinforcing the rule that a corporate officer—or perhaps only a corporate owner, see GLOBAL TRAFFIC TECHNOLOGIES v. MORGAN 23 Accordingly, we affirm the infringement verdict against Morgan and in favor of GTT.