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Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Mortensen

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Argued in tandem: November 5, 2009

Before: B.D. PARKER, HALL, AND LYNCH, Circuit Judges.

The parties appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Chatigny, J.) dismissing claims and counterclaims related to the retention of policyholder information by insurance agents after they terminated their exclusive agency agreement with Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. (“Nationwide”). In 1999, the defendants — insurance agents who had long sold Nationwide insurance policies — began to terminate their agency agreements in order to work for Nationwide’s competitors. This appeal considers whether policyholder information compiled by the agents and stored in various formats constitutes a protected “trade secret” or other confidential information belonging to Nationwide. The agents, for their part, raise counterclaims arguing that Nationwide violated their contract by seeking to deprive them of this policyholder information and, in the alternative, that they are entitled to certain deferred compensation they accrued. Because we find that the policyholder files do not constitute trade secrets or confidential information protected by Connecticut law, we reject Nationwide’s trade secrets and related claims. In addition, we conclude that the district court correctly dismissed the agents’ counterclaims.

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