This column first addressed an employee’s duty of loyalty nine years ago, almost to the day. A recent ruling of San Diego’s division of the California court of appeal prompts this update.
Guild Mortgage Company LLC v. CrossCountry Mortgage LLC addressed claims by nationwide residential mortgage lender Guild Mortgage Company against a rival firm, CrossCountry Mortgage (CCM). Guild alleged CCM conspired with three Guild employees at Guild’s Kirkland, Wash. branch — while they were still Guild employees — to divert Guild loan business and employees to CCM.
Guild further sought damages from CCM for conspiring with the employees to steal Guild trade secrets and other confidential information and to access Guild’s computer system to copy stored confidential information and use it to CCM’s competitive advantage.
Guild was awarded monetary relief from each of the three allegedly conspiring employees in arbitrations. Guild separately sued CCM in court while those arbitrations were pending.
CCM argued the three Guild employees owed no actionable duties to Guild, so CCM could not be liable for aiding and abetting any breach of duty. CCM further argued it could not be liable for interfering with Guild’s relationships with Guild employees and customers or for conspiring in the employees’ unauthorized conduct related to Guild’s computer systems because the heart of those claims was the employees’ misappropriation of trade secrets for which the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act...
“Let me lay out the facts: Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Period. Despite his false claims, there is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in that election and we heard nothing new today...