Court Opinion

ID: 9505322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:03:39.99402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:23.760860
License: Public Domain

DICKSON, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion acknowledges that the legislature's purpose in adopting the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) was "to make uniform the law with respect to the subject matter of this chapter among states enacting the provisions of this chapter." Majority opinion at 1083, quoting Ind.Code § 24-2-3-1(b). By holding that the Uniform Act displaced the common law principle of respondeat superior liability, however, the majority creates a lack of uniformity. As noted by our Court of Appeals, two other jurisdictions, applying nearly identical trade secret statutes, have held that an employer may be vicariously liable for its employee's misappropriation of trade secrets. Infinity Products, Inc. v. Quandt, 775 N.E.2d 1144, 1153 (Ind.Ct.*1035App.2002), citing Newport News Indus. v. Dynamic Testing, Inc., 130 F. Supp 2d 745, 751 (E.D.Va.2001) (permitting respon-deat superior liability for violation of Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act); Hagen v. Burmeister & Assoc., Inc., 633 N.W.2d 497, 504 (Minn.2001) (applying unpublished Minnesota Court of Appeals holding that employer can, as a matter of law, be vicariously liable for an employee's UTSA violation). Cf. Sheltry v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of America, 247 F. Supp 2d 169, 181 (D.Conn.2003) (permitting vicarious liability claim against insurance company for broker's violation of Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act); Chanay v. Chittenden, 115 Ariz. 32, 563 P.2d 287, 293-94 (1977) (permitting claim of vicarious lability of insurance company for unfair trade practices 1 of its general agent).
The time-honored common law principle of an employer's respondeat superior liability for the acts of an employee done in the scope of employment is not "conflicting law of this state pertaining to the misappropriation of trade secrets." Ind.Code § 24-2-38-l(c). The Uniform Act's requirement that a claimant demonstrate the wrongdoer's scienter does not "conflict". with the imposition of vicarious liability of the wrongdoer's employer. To the contrary, the risk of such liability serves as an incentive for employers to discourage their employees from using misappropriated trade secrets. The doctrine of respondeat superior thus does not conflict with, but rather fosters, the purposes of the act.
The majority avers that the Uniform Act "affords fulsome avenues of relief," but in reality, the relief is meager indeed when as here it is limited to the assets of the individual employee wrong-doer, and the employer who benefits from an employee's misappropriation is immunized from its customary common law responsibility for the wrongful acts of its employees. Sword v. NKC Hospitals, Inc., 714 N.E.2d 142, 148 (Ind.1999).
I would reverse the trial court and find that Fabri-Tech can be held vicariously liable for Quandt's misappropriations done in the seope of employment.
RUCKER, J., concurs.

. This claim, however, appears to have been a common law claim of unfair trade practice under the Restatement of Torts §§ 757, 759, rather than under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.