As more plaintiffs bring claims under the shiny new Defend Trade Secrets Act, we continue to learn about how courts are interpreting this statute. On Tuesday, the District of New Jersey answered an open question: whether the statute, in conjunction with Twombly/Iqbal, requires a heightened pleading standard for misappropriation. In Chubb INA Holdings, Inc. v. Chang, the DNJ declined to apply such a standard. A copy of the opinion can be downloaded below.

In this case, Chubb sued its former employee and its competitor Endurance, alleging that the former employee worked with Endurance to solicit a large number of employees from Chubb’s real estate and hospitality division. The goal was to hire enough Chubb employees to create a “turnkey” operation for Endurance. In the process, Chubb alleges, the former employees took Chubb’s confidential information. Chubb sued for, among other things, violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Chubb did not offer sufficient allegations of actual misappropriation, as opposed to inevitable disclosure. In denying this motion, the court found that Chubb alleged “more than the mere possibility of misconduct,” citing to Ashcroft v. Iqbal. The court also focused on the pleading standard:

Plaintiffs “need not make out specific allegations as to exactly how Defendants used or disclosed Plaintiff[s’] trade secrets; there is no heightened pleading standard for a misappropriation claim, and Plaintiff[s are] entitled to seek discovery to support [their] allegations setting forth a prima facie claim.”

The court was quoting from a case interpreting a New Jersey state-law claim for trade-secrets misappropriation.

This is obviously a plaintiff-friendly interpretation of the statute. It allows plaintiffs to plead misappropriation more generally, and then obtain discovery to sharpen the details.

Interestingly, the court’s approach here—relying on reasoning from a court in its state interpreting that state’s trade-secrets law—could result in state-by-state differences in how the DTSA is interpreted.

Chubb v. Chang MTD Order