[00:00:00] Speaker 00:
for their arguments in the case just argued is submitted.

[00:00:04] Speaker 00:
With that, we will proceed to the final case on the argument calendar, Traverse Therapy versus Sadler Bridges Wellness Group.

[00:00:54] Speaker 00:
All right, counsel, you have 15 minutes each and whenever you're ready to proceed.

[00:01:00] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:01:02] Speaker 05:
May it please the court, I'm Daniel Spurgeon on behalf of Traverse Therapy Services, the plaintiff below, and the appellant here.

[00:01:09] Speaker 00:
I'd like to reserve... Counsel, if you could maybe speak a little closer to the mic.

[00:01:13] Speaker ?:
Thank you.

[00:01:14] Speaker 05:
I'd like to reserve 10 minutes for rebuttal, Your Honor.

[00:01:19] Speaker 01:
You've got 15 minutes, you're saving 10 of it?

[00:01:21] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:01:25] Speaker 05:
This case is a relatively straightforward dispute over trade secrets.

[00:01:30] Speaker 05:
Unlike many other cases, the statutes are clear, the case law is clear, the canons of interpretation are clear.

[00:01:39] Speaker 05:
Where this case went wrong is the application of those clear standards.

[00:01:46] Speaker 05:
The trade secrets act creates no exceptions for medical businesses to be stripped of their protections for their trade secrets.

[00:01:56] Speaker 05:
The district court here essentially created an exception that Congress chose not to create, where if the information is protected under HIPAA,

[00:02:06] Speaker 05:
it loses its protection under the trade secret statutes, which is not in the text of the statute.

[00:02:13] Speaker 05:
It's not recognized in any case law and was clearly an error.

[00:02:18] Speaker 05:
Although we're here under a de novo standard, even if it was under an abusive discretion standard of review, that departure from the statutory text would require reversal itself.

[00:02:29] Speaker 02:
What efforts did your client undertake to protect what it considers to be trade secrets?

[00:02:39] Speaker 05:
Your Honor, we have a secure database called Simple Practice, and only employees who are assigned to treat particular patients have electronic access rights to even know about those particular therapy clients.

[00:02:55] Speaker 05:
We introduced the declaration of Mr. Singh and Ms.

[00:02:59] Speaker 05:
Suthered.

[00:03:01] Speaker 05:
those declarations spell out the password protection process, the assignment of different email accounts.

[00:03:07] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:03:07] Speaker 02:
Campbell had to access that information while she was employed by your client in order to render services, correct?

[00:03:17] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:03:20] Speaker 05:
I was going to point out, in the testimony, deposition testimony of Mr. Campbell, or Ms.

[00:03:29] Speaker 05:
Campbell, Mr. Bulling-Bridges, as cited in our opening brief, they freely admitted the only reason that they had access to these clients' identities, the fact of therapy purchases, was because of their authorized duties as Traverse employees.

[00:03:46] Speaker 05:
And it doesn't waive trade secrets.

[00:03:49] Speaker 02:
While Campbell was employed by your client, she dealt with individual clients, correct?

[00:03:56] Speaker 04:
Yes, your honor.

[00:03:56] Speaker 02:
And had access to information related to those clients?

[00:04:02] Speaker 04:
Yes, your honor.

[00:04:03] Speaker 02:
After she left, did she attempt to contact any person that was not her client before?

[00:04:11] Speaker 05:
Not her client.

[00:04:12] Speaker 05:
That we don't know because of the withheld communications.

[00:04:15] Speaker 02:
What information is there that she did contact people who were not her client?

[00:04:22] Speaker 05:
There's nothing in the record presently that after her departure, she was contacting people who were not Traverse clients during her employment.

[00:04:32] Speaker 05:
There is evidence in the record that some of those 50 people she sent the email to while a Traverse employee using Traverse's password protected information that she was not presently treating them as a Traverse employee.

[00:04:47] Speaker 02:
She had signed an employment agreement with your client?

[00:04:51] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:04:52] Speaker 02:
Did it say anything about trade secrets?

[00:04:54] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:04:55] Speaker 02:
Did it identify the information you just described as being a trade secret?

[00:05:01] Speaker 05:
It doesn't use the term trade secret, but it does refer to confidential information in a way that encompasses client information, patient information, which clearly encompasses the information that we suit upon here.

[00:05:18] Speaker 02:
Any separate document signed by Ms.

[00:05:24] Speaker 02:
Campbell that acknowledged that this client information was in fact a trade secret?

[00:05:33] Speaker 05:
It does in substance, Your Honor, and we have the policies in the record.

[00:05:39] Speaker 05:
But it's not a standalone trade secrets document.

[00:05:42] Speaker 05:
It's a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that covers the subject thoroughly.

[00:05:48] Speaker 02:
But no separate document in which Ms.

[00:05:51] Speaker 02:
Campbell acknowledged at the request of your client that this client information was trade secret?

[00:06:00] Speaker 05:
Well, there's no separate standalone agreement to answer your question directly.

[00:06:04] Speaker 05:
I will point out that the statutes, both Washington and federal, do not require a contractual commitment.

[00:06:11] Speaker 05:
It's one of the many pathways to protection under the statute.

[00:06:15] Speaker 05:
However, as long as the person who is

[00:06:18] Speaker 05:
requiring or using the information has reason to know that it is subject to the employer's protective sphere.

[00:06:27] Speaker 05:
That is sufficient to protect it and bar any unauthorized use.

[00:06:32] Speaker 02:
Did your client engage in consistent enforcement of its understanding of what trade secrets were?

[00:06:45] Speaker 05:
Yes, your honor.

[00:06:46] Speaker 05:
In fact, when Traverse noticed that there was an unusual change in the amount of retained clients in that summer 2023, they thought someone might be misusing the information.

[00:07:02] Speaker 05:
So they, in fact, sent the warning letter that cited the Trost case and the Washington Nowagroski case that pointed out, in case this is happening and you're using Traverse's

[00:07:16] Speaker 05:
password-protected information that you only accessed as a Traverse employee for purposes of recruiting business to a competing entity, that's unlawful.

[00:07:27] Speaker 05:
So it's just a warning.

[00:07:28] Speaker 05:
If this is happening, stop.

[00:07:31] Speaker 02:
And in fact, the warning was ignored.

[00:07:33] Speaker 02:
What about Katie Musso?

[00:07:36] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:07:37] Speaker 05:
She's the one who admitted that she was, as a Traverse employee, she was using Traverse's information

[00:07:46] Speaker 05:
that she only had access to because she was working as a Traverse employee to recruit those patients.

[00:07:53] Speaker 02:
Did your client take enforcement action against her?

[00:07:57] Speaker 05:
We didn't sue her because we didn't.

[00:07:58] Speaker 02:
The answer to my question is no.

[00:08:00] Speaker 05:
Correct?

[00:08:02] Speaker 02:
You can explain, but the answer to my question is no, isn't it?

[00:08:06] Speaker 05:
The short answer is no, Your Honor.

[00:08:08] Speaker 05:
However... Go ahead and explain.

[00:08:11] Speaker 05:
We didn't know that that was happening at the time.

[00:08:14] Speaker 05:
Secondarily, none of the relevant laws require us to sue every potential defendant after the trade secret violation has already happened to have a prima facie case for earlier events.

[00:08:27] Speaker 02:
Were there other former employees of Traverse who went to work for competing organizations?

[00:08:35] Speaker 02:
Certainly.

[00:08:36] Speaker 02:
And did your client seek enforcement actions against them?

[00:08:42] Speaker 05:
No, the short answer is no.

[00:08:44] Speaker 05:
And again, the longer explanation is there was no evidence that they had actually been using their Traverse Trade Secrets access to recruit those people to leave.

[00:08:57] Speaker 05:
We don't assume that they won't be able to carry on in their careers.

[00:09:03] Speaker 05:
But when we see evidence as we did here with an actual email that we found in August 2023,

[00:09:11] Speaker 05:
That is a clear violation and we pursued it.

[00:09:13] Speaker 00:
So counsel, what duties in your view does a therapist have to inform a patient, a client, that they're no longer going to be seeing them and that they're moving to a different place?

[00:09:33] Speaker 00:
So they've been treating them for years.

[00:09:35] Speaker 00:
It's a therapeutic relationship.

[00:09:38] Speaker 00:
Do they have any professional duties to the client that would overcome any potential trade secret?

[00:09:45] Speaker 05:
I know, Your Honor, and that was exactly the argument made by the defendant in the Trost case, which, you know, was even pointed out, you know, pre-violation to the defendants in a letter.

[00:09:57] Speaker 05:
In Trost, the Washington Court of Appeals rejected that claim and said there was no authority

[00:10:04] Speaker 05:
that in that case it was a licensed nurse.

[00:10:07] Speaker 05:
There's no authority that this nurse has a right to use trade secrets to notify the patients of her departure.

[00:10:17] Speaker 05:
But even going beyond that point,

[00:10:21] Speaker 05:
It wasn't as if no one was going to notify these therapy clients of the departure.

[00:10:28] Speaker 05:
Traverse, as its declarations explain, as Traverse's 30B6 deponent explained, had a process to make sure that all these therapy clients were properly transitioned.

[00:10:42] Speaker 05:
Catherine Southern's declaration explained that if a therapist says this person really needs to stay with me individually She is freely consented to that when it's appropriate for the patient's well-being so Your view is that at least in the light most favorable to you you had a process in place to handle Patient by patient on an individual basis.

[00:11:05] Speaker 05:
Yes, your honor.

[00:11:05] Speaker 05:
That's in the record.

[00:11:06] Speaker ?:
I

[00:11:06] Speaker 02:
Whose decision is it whether to stick with Traverse or go with a therapist who moves to another organization?

[00:11:16] Speaker 05:
Well, it's certainly the patient's own decision where to seek any kind of medical care.

[00:11:21] Speaker 02:
And do we know from the facts in the record how many of her patients moved with her?

[00:11:27] Speaker 05:
Even with the discovery obstruction that we encountered, we did get statements by Ms.

[00:11:36] Speaker 05:
Campbell that at least 127 Traverse Therapy clients were taken over to Sadler Bridges Wellness Group.

[00:11:46] Speaker 02:
Has she taken out an ad in the newspaper that said she had moved?

[00:11:50] Speaker 02:
Would that implicate trade secrets?

[00:11:53] Speaker 05:
No, and in fact, Ms.

[00:11:55] Speaker 05:
Campbell testified that out of the 60 therapy clients who she was then seeing at Sadler Bridges, she obtained 15 to 20 through that exact route.

[00:12:08] Speaker 05:
The rest were people she had recruited through her email to Traverse patients using Traverse's information.

[00:12:17] Speaker ?:
Okay.

[00:12:17] Speaker 05:
And I'll just point out that this email that we do have from Ms.

[00:12:21] Speaker 05:
Campbell, she testified that Ms.

[00:12:25] Speaker 05:
Sadler helped her prepare it, told her what insurance information to include to promote.

[00:12:32] Speaker 05:
The you know a switch it wasn't a mere notification.

[00:12:35] Speaker 05:
It didn't say just to let you know I'm leaving I'm going to go here.

[00:12:40] Speaker 05:
It didn't say that at all.

[00:12:41] Speaker 05:
It didn't even disclose Sadler bridges Wellness Group or her destination.

[00:12:46] Speaker 05:
It gave essentially promotional information about why this new place is lucrative and it also.

[00:12:57] Speaker 05:
Diverted the recipients of the email to a non traverse email account.

[00:13:02] Speaker 05:
which is in and of itself, especially under the light most favorable to traverse the non-moving party, certainly an indicia of misappropriation.

[00:13:13] Speaker 01:
One very technical question, which is the opening brief, you've certified compliance with the length limitation and tells us the brief contains 14,003 words.

[00:13:27] Speaker 01:
What is your understanding of what the length limitation is under our rules?

[00:13:32] Speaker 01:
It is 14,000 words, Your Honor.

[00:13:34] Speaker 01:
I apologize for that.

[00:13:37] Speaker 01:
So you've certified compliance with something you now acknowledge you didn't comply with and couldn't have lost three words someplace?

[00:13:45] Speaker 05:
I apologize for that, Your Honor.

[00:13:47] Speaker 01:
Well, be more careful.

[00:13:50] Speaker 00:
Did you want to reserve counsel?

[00:13:53] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:13:54] Speaker 00:
All right.

[00:13:54] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:13:54] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:14:07] Speaker 03:
Good morning.

[00:14:08] Speaker 03:
May it please the court.

[00:14:09] Speaker 03:
I'm Howard Morrill.

[00:14:10] Speaker 03:
I represent the appellees, Sadler Bridges Wellness Group, Jamie Bolding Bridges, and Haley Campbell.

[00:14:18] Speaker 03:
I don't want to speak long because the record's clear about when things were filed, but it still seems to me

[00:14:26] Speaker 03:
that this appeal was untimely filed.

[00:14:30] Speaker 01:
Was a judgment entered by the district court?

[00:14:33] Speaker 03:
Not a judgment, but there's plenty of case law that says a voluntary dismissal of the final remaining claim is a final order.

[00:14:43] Speaker 03:
It appears to me that that occurred on May 8th, 2024.

[00:14:46] Speaker 01:
I've got something called judgment in a civil case that appears to have been filed.

[00:14:51] Speaker 01:
Yes, your honor.

[00:14:54] Speaker 01:
My question was was a judgment filed in this case and I didn't hear the answer.

[00:14:58] Speaker 01:
Yes, your honor.

[00:14:59] Speaker 01:
It was okay.

[00:15:00] Speaker 03:
If you measure from the judgment, it would be timely.

[00:15:03] Speaker 03:
Okay, I bring it up because that's the way I saw it.

[00:15:06] Speaker 03:
I've seen I've seen attorneys criticized by the circuit for not raising it if they see it.

[00:15:14] Speaker 03:
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

[00:15:16] Speaker 03:
I'm prepared to address the merits.

[00:15:18] Speaker 02:
Do you agree that under Washington state law, whether something is in fact a trade secret or not is a question of fact?

[00:15:31] Speaker 03:
It would be if there was evidence to meet the prima facie showing that a trade secret plaintiff has to make.

[00:15:42] Speaker 03:
And in this case, there was an utter failure to do that.

[00:15:45] Speaker 03:
And that was really the basis of the trial court's ruling.

[00:15:49] Speaker 03:
That, in fact, and I quote her, Traverse puts forth no evidence to suggest the patient list constitutes a trade secret.

[00:15:59] Speaker 03:
Rather, Traverse conflates the mere existence of a patient letter that it is legally required to keep confidential per HIPAA with a trade secret.

[00:16:11] Speaker 03:
Contrary to the statement of counsel, the court did not find that persons or firms are stripped of trade secret protection in HIPAA information.

[00:16:25] Speaker 03:
It simply found that this

[00:16:27] Speaker 03:
Information may well be protected by HIPAA, but it is not a trade secret because there's no evidence that it's trade secret.

[00:16:37] Speaker 03:
You can't.

[00:16:38] Speaker 01:
What's it take to make it evident that a professional customarily doesn't publicize to its relationships, its business relationships are worth?

[00:16:50] Speaker 03:
What does it take to say what it was worth?

[00:16:52] Speaker 03:
Well, one of the simplest ways to show that would be effort and expense in developing the information.

[00:17:02] Speaker 03:
Here the information was entirely to the contrary.

[00:17:08] Speaker 03:
There was simply

[00:17:10] Speaker 03:
The only analogy I can draw is the chopping wood, we can take the wood and create a stack of wood, and here we have Traverse saying that's a trade secret.

[00:17:24] Speaker 03:
It did nothing but accept information that came from clients or, and I think this is the significant thing, or a significant thing.

[00:17:33] Speaker 03:
came from the therapists themselves.

[00:17:35] Speaker 03:
The therapists got contacted all the time with this information.

[00:17:40] Speaker 03:
It was common apparently.

[00:17:41] Speaker 00:
But these were clients of Traverse.

[00:17:45] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:17:47] Speaker 03:
Traverse testified the clients don't belong to Traverse.

[00:17:51] Speaker 00:
But who did they pay?

[00:17:54] Speaker 03:
They paid traverse.

[00:17:57] Speaker 00:
And the conflict of interest policy prohibits using proprietary and or confidential information for personal gain or to the company's detriment.

[00:18:11] Speaker 03:
Uh, that is certainly what it says.

[00:18:14] Speaker 00:
Okay.

[00:18:14] Speaker 00:
And losing clients was certainly to the company's detriment, right?

[00:18:20] Speaker 00:
Uh, it would be.

[00:18:21] Speaker 00:
Okay.

[00:18:21] Speaker 00:
And, um, uh, among other things, uh, one of these key emails was sent out from the company's email, right?

[00:18:31] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:18:31] Speaker 00:
So the use the company's resource to let hundreds of people know, uh, I'm leaving, come follow me if you want.

[00:18:42] Speaker 03:
That's one construction.

[00:18:43] Speaker 03:
There's also a construction, as your honor raised, the issue of having to actually let your clients know that you are leaving and your duty to do that.

[00:18:53] Speaker 00:
But it came on a company email.

[00:18:55] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:18:56] Speaker 00:
It said, if you would like to follow me to the new practice, please provide your contact information to my Gmail account.

[00:19:02] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:19:03] Speaker 03:
And the fact of the matter is that is the thing that brought us here.

[00:19:10] Speaker 03:
It is this email.

[00:19:12] Speaker 03:
What was missing prior to the email or any other contact with clients was any treatment of the material as a trade secret.

[00:19:24] Speaker 03:
Confidential does not equal trade secret.

[00:19:27] Speaker 01:
If there was a law... Well, it has an economic value.

[00:19:32] Speaker 01:
It's pretty self-evident.

[00:19:33] Speaker 01:
It has economic value.

[00:19:35] Speaker 01:
And so I'm having, I mean, my previous question, what's it take to make a prima facie case?

[00:19:42] Speaker 01:
Doesn't seem to me it takes very much.

[00:19:44] Speaker 01:
You're saying summary judgment is appropriate because they didn't make a prima facie case, and I'm trying to figure out, well, what more has to be shown to reach the low level required to satisfy that obligation, and I don't know what's missing.

[00:19:57] Speaker 03:
Well, I think there's actually quite a bit of development of the case law into how low a level that is, but I think we have the basic problem here is it reached no level.

[00:20:07] Speaker 03:
There was no evidence offered.

[00:20:10] Speaker 03:
You can't just say you have to offer evidence of the value and say, and it simply exists because it's a client list.

[00:20:21] Speaker 03:
I mean, that's essentially what Traverse's position is.

[00:20:25] Speaker 03:
It's a client list, so it has economic value.

[00:20:29] Speaker 03:
Well then there's a whole lot of case law that doesn't make any sense.

[00:20:31] Speaker 03:
Why do we even talk about showing the effort and expense to develop the information?

[00:20:38] Speaker 03:
The fact of the matter is this was confidential information under HIPAA.

[00:20:42] Speaker 03:
It was.

[00:20:43] Speaker 03:
The clients Traverse agrees it doesn't control.

[00:20:46] Speaker 03:
They're not Traverse's clients or they're not Traverse's clients exclusively.

[00:20:51] Speaker 03:
These are a bunch of therapists who have professional relationships with these clients.

[00:20:56] Speaker 03:
This was not a lawsuit brought for violation of the confidentiality provision.

[00:21:01] Speaker 03:
It was a lawsuit brought for violation of trade secret law.

[00:21:06] Speaker 03:
And there has to be a prima facie showing of a trade secret before you can get there.

[00:21:12] Speaker 03:
So it was a question of law because nothing had been done to show that.

[00:21:18] Speaker 03:
Further, there are independent bases for affirming the trial court in the record.

[00:21:23] Speaker 03:
The fact of the matter is, this wasn't ever treated as a trade secret.

[00:21:28] Speaker 03:
Not ever.

[00:21:29] Speaker 03:
This secure database stuff,

[00:21:31] Speaker 03:
Yes, it was available.

[00:21:32] Speaker 03:
This information was available on a secure database.

[00:21:35] Speaker 03:
There's also uncontroverted evidence.

[00:21:38] Speaker 03:
It was available all over the personal devices of the therapists, all over.

[00:21:44] Speaker 03:
There's voluminous showing of examples of that, that this information was available to them.

[00:21:53] Speaker 03:
to all these therapists.

[00:21:55] Speaker 03:
All of whom were working for Traverse.

[00:21:56] Speaker 03:
All of whom were working for Traverse.

[00:21:58] Speaker 01:
Somebody who walked in and say, I want to start a practice as a therapist here.

[00:22:03] Speaker 01:
Why do you tell me who all you service and who all you receive payments from so I can go try to mine that for myself?

[00:22:14] Speaker 01:
Now, would you expect Traverse to hand over that list?

[00:22:18] Speaker 03:
I would not for a number of reasons, including HIPAA, but the fact of the matter is the fact they wouldn't hand over the list ignores the fact they did hand over the list to people who are working for Traverse.

[00:22:32] Speaker 03:
Well, no, the clients contacted these therapists.

[00:22:36] Speaker 03:
Traverse didn't supply these clients.

[00:22:39] Speaker 00:
So client A knew how to contact therapist B, but client A would not have known how to contact

[00:22:48] Speaker 00:
50 other clients Well the 50 clients I think there's I mean one client wouldn't have access to who other clients were So and mr.. Bolding bridges testified that all of this was confidential you've conceded that absolutely and he testified that none of the therapists or at least he didn't have any access to it without using a password and

[00:23:17] Speaker 03:
I'm looking at ER 591.

[00:23:22] Speaker 00:
Was there any client information that

[00:23:25] Speaker 03:
At Traverse that you had access to that did not require a password to get into answer no correct at Traverse and we agreed the information was at Traverse we also have uncontroverted testimony that because Traverse encouraged the use of personal devices Wouldn't supply personal devices to therapists

[00:23:48] Speaker 03:
that they encouraged establishment of Zoom contacts and that these therapists had all of this information through other alternative sources.

[00:24:00] Speaker 03:
And Ms.

[00:24:00] Speaker 03:
Campbell, by the way, testified that she thought she was doing the upstanding thing by contacting them through Traverse rather than doing it as some kind of seemingly underhanded move outside of Traverse.

[00:24:14] Speaker 00:
By using the Traverse email and telling the clients to contact her at Gmail?

[00:24:21] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:24:21] Speaker 00:
By saying, look, I'm not cutting Traverse out.

[00:24:24] Speaker 00:
And she copied her boss on that email?

[00:24:26] Speaker 00:
I don't believe so.

[00:24:27] Speaker 00:
No.

[00:24:29] Speaker 00:
But that said.

[00:24:29] Speaker 01:
So exactly how is she letting Traverse know that I'm trying to carry away these patients?

[00:24:33] Speaker 03:
I don't think she was letting Traverse know that, but she also wasn't going to cut Traverse out of the communication.

[00:24:39] Speaker 03:
These clients could reach Traverse.

[00:24:41] Speaker 03:
It came on a Traverse email.

[00:24:43] Speaker 03:
I think the basic point is this.

[00:24:46] Speaker 03:
There is summary judgment case law all over trade secrets when a purported trade secret holder

[00:24:56] Speaker 03:
doesn't treat the information as a trade secret, doesn't collect it at termination of employment, doesn't have policies in place to say what happens to the information, doesn't treat the information jealously at all.

[00:25:10] Speaker 03:
The fact of the matter is all this stuff about Mr. Spurgeon's letters to my clients was after the deeds were done.

[00:25:19] Speaker 03:
No prior communication made anything clear that there was a trade secret issue involved here.

[00:25:26] Speaker 03:
There were ethical duties to the clients.

[00:25:29] Speaker 03:
There were not trade secrets communications.

[00:25:31] Speaker 03:
And we know that they know that because they testified that the policy statements they rely on weren't clear.

[00:25:40] Speaker 03:
In fact, they supplanted them with a trade secrets agreement.

[00:25:44] Speaker 03:
a specific trade secrets agreement, one that uses the term trade secrets and talks about collecting the information after you leave Traverse.

[00:25:52] Speaker 02:
Well, because they closed the barn door after the horses were gone, that takes us essentially nowhere, does it?

[00:26:00] Speaker 03:
Oh, I think it takes us everywhere, Your Honor.

[00:26:02] Speaker 03:
The fact of the matter is you jealously guard trade secret information or you lose it.

[00:26:07] Speaker 03:
That has been found on summary judgment by multiple courts.

[00:26:10] Speaker 03:
And we do cite some of that case law.

[00:26:12] Speaker 03:
There's additional case law that says you treat it as a trade secret or you lose it.

[00:26:17] Speaker 03:
And you can be found on summary judgment to have lost the protection because you didn't safeguard it.

[00:26:24] Speaker 03:
They didn't safeguard it.

[00:26:26] Speaker 03:
They never safeguarded it.

[00:26:27] Speaker 03:
My clients were shocked to hear that this was somehow being claimed to be trade secret information.

[00:26:33] Speaker 03:
In fact, two of my clients left.

[00:26:36] Speaker 03:
perverse without any sort of fault or all, and were simply allowed to do so, and there was a friendly, amicable parting.

[00:26:48] Speaker 03:
What happened here is really pretty simple.

[00:26:51] Speaker 03:
Maybe just background to the issue.

[00:26:53] Speaker 03:
But what happened here is pretty simple.

[00:26:55] Speaker 03:
Traverse started him urging therapists.

[00:26:59] Speaker 03:
And the therapist, in many cases, wanted to go work for my clients.

[00:27:03] Speaker 03:
And it is the proverbial case of locking the barn door after the horse is bolted.

[00:27:09] Speaker 03:
Suddenly, a newly discovered theory of trait secret protection comes up for the first time in any discussion of anyone.

[00:27:17] Speaker 03:
It is a little late after the fact.

[00:27:21] Speaker 03:
My clients weren't sued for breaches of confidentiality.

[00:27:24] Speaker 03:
They were sued for trade secrets violations.

[00:27:28] Speaker 03:
That was a specific claim.

[00:27:31] Speaker 03:
If they violated

[00:27:32] Speaker 03:
Some confidentiality provision let's just say no claim was brought on account of that it was a trade secrets claim It was presented as a trade secrets claim trade secrets claims have some actual Requirements connected with them and the legislature could have made the statute much simpler if all it wanted to say is well you know if it's a

[00:27:53] Speaker 03:
If it's a client list, it's a trade secret.

[00:27:56] Speaker 03:
They didn't.

[00:27:57] Speaker 03:
They didn't.

[00:27:57] Speaker 03:
They said, you have to show it has independent economic value on account of its secrecy.

[00:28:04] Speaker 03:
No effort was made to show that.

[00:28:06] Speaker 03:
The trial court found none, none whatsoever.

[00:28:10] Speaker 03:
No effort was made to say how the information was developed, how it was curated, what was done with it, whether it was even used.

[00:28:18] Speaker 03:
It was simply information frequently that came from my clients first.

[00:28:24] Speaker 03:
And I will say there are statements that counsel makes that this was only available via a secure database.

[00:28:32] Speaker 03:
Well, this is not true.

[00:28:35] Speaker 03:
Most of the clients on psychology today, well, they all contact the therapist first and directly.

[00:28:42] Speaker 03:
Traverse could have said, you know what, that information you're getting, we're paying for that.

[00:28:46] Speaker 03:
We want you to transfer it to us and delete it from your servers, from your systems, all that.

[00:28:52] Speaker 03:
No, nothing, nothing whatsoever.

[00:28:55] Speaker 03:
And just that failure has resulted in summary judgment against trade secrets claimants.

[00:29:02] Speaker 03:
That is a complete abandonment of secrecy.

[00:29:05] Speaker 03:
And once secrecy is lost, it's lost.

[00:29:08] Speaker 03:
It was too late to write and say, now we want it to be trade secrets.

[00:29:12] Speaker 00:
All right.

[00:29:13] Speaker 00:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:29:14] Speaker 03:
Thank you, your honor.

[00:29:22] Speaker 05:
Very brief closing statement, your honor.

[00:29:25] Speaker 05:
On page 58 of the opening brief, I've included some sites for the proposition that compilations can, in fact, be trade secrets, including the United States versus NOSOL 844 F3rd 1024 at page 1042.

[00:29:41] Speaker 05:
There's also, on the Washington side, the Ed Nowagroski case.

[00:29:46] Speaker 05:
that has a very simple test for when compilations of customer illicit trade secrets traverse satisfied all of those elements, not only looking at it in the Rule 56 context of summary judgment, but also just overall, I mean, traverses evidence on these points, you know, is uncontroverted.

[00:30:08] Speaker 05:
And we hear factual assertions that Traverse never protected anything and all of this other criticism, but the record itself doesn't support those factual assertions.

[00:30:20] Speaker 05:
In fact, I'll also point to page 65 of the opening brief where Mr. Bolding Bridges admitted that he didn't know any of these therapy patients

[00:30:29] Speaker 05:
until he was working for Traverse and received these assignments through Traverse.

[00:30:35] Speaker 05:
So any argument that these were people who any of the defendants had a prior professional relationship is incorrect per the record.

[00:30:47] Speaker 05:
And the subjective rationalizations that a party would offer after the fact

[00:30:54] Speaker 05:
Those are not criteria under the statutes or the recognized case law.

[00:30:59] Speaker 05:
And unless the court has any further questions, that's all I have for today.

[00:31:03] Speaker 00:
No.

[00:31:04] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:31:04] Speaker 00:
We thank counsel for their arguments.

[00:31:06] Speaker 00:
The case just argued is submitted.

[00:31:08] Speaker 00:
And with that, we are adjourned for the day.

[00:31:10] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:31:10] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:31:11] Speaker 05:
And again, I apologize for the word count.