Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[cooperstown]

Looking for some opinions on the following situation:  I am a former employee of a company that owes me commission payments.  I have filed a wage claim and am awaiting our court date to fight for these payments.  Upon my leaving the company, one of the documents that I took with me included a list of proposals sent to potential customers along with the dollar values of the proposals.  I used this to calculate what was due me.  This document was labeled 'company confidential' and I did go to work for a direct competitor after I left, however I used this document for nothing more than to know what my former company owed me and that is absolutely no evidence of misappropriating any of the information for gain at my new company.  However one of the defenses that my former company is now using to avoid payment to me is by threatening to file a suit against me for violation of trade secrets.  I did not sign any such non disclosure agreement or non compete clause.

Does my former company have a viable claim on this?  They knew I had the document and did not request it back (it was just a copy) until they figured they could call a bluff.

[MYK]

This will depend partly on your state TS and employment laws.  You won't be able to get a good answer on a public forum, since you should not be posting as much detail as you already have, much less as much as you would need to in order to get a solid answer -- and besides, no attorney will give you an answer that could be considered "legal advice" based on a bunch of posts on a web forum.

You'll need to seek advice from an attorney admitted to the bar in the state in which the actions are taking place.