Trade Secrets - A Departing Employee Case from Evansville

If I am following the article, Plastics firms at odds, from The Evansville Courier, this employee was hired by the new company before actually departing from the plaintiff company.

In the complaint, Rexam attorneys say the company previously employed Whitehead as director of sales, but he accepted a job as vice president of business development for Berry Plastics' Rigid Closed Top Division on Dec. 11.

Rexam claims Whitehead did not disclose to them he had taken a job with Berry until Jan. 3, and alleges his position at Berry amounts to a breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and "actual, threatened and inevitable misappropriation and conversion of Rexam's confidential information and trade secrets."

"Before accepting his job at Berry, while still employed at Rexam and without Rexam's knowledge, Whitehead solicited several Rexam engineering, manufacturing and sales employees, including senior managers, for employment at Berry," the complaint states.