Fulton Grand Laundry Co. v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 25 January 1922
• Docket Number: 107.
• Citation: 117 A. 753,140 Md. 359
• Parties: FULTON GRAND LAUNDRY CO. v. JOHNSON.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

117 A. 753

140 Md. 359

FULTON GRAND LAUNDRY CO. v. JOHNSON.

No. 107.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 25, 1922

Motion for Reargument Denied March 23, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City; H. Arthur Stump Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Suit by the Fulton Grand Laundry Company, a body corporate, against Edward Johnson. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Offutt J., dissenting.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and THOMAS, PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, and OFFUTT, JJ.

Edward F. Johnson, of Baltimore, for appellant.

George W. Cameron, of Baltimore, for appellee.

ADKINS J.

This is an appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer to the bill of complaint filed by appellant, and dissolving a preliminary injunction which had been previously granted.

The allegations of the bill, so far as it is necessary to recite them, are substantially as follows:

The plaintiff is a corporation engaged in the general laundry business at No. 1719 East Oliver street, in Baltimore city that the most valuable asset of the said business is the good will thereof which has been created by a course of dealing with customers for a number of years, which customers were secured only after great labor and expense; that plaintiff draws business from all that portion of said city lying east of Charles street, which section is divided by plaintiff into districts or routes, one of which is designated No. 6; that a driver, who also acts as a solicitor for new work, is assigned to each route, and is given a list of customers thereon from whom he receives laundry bundles, which he takes to the plant, and which, after they are laundered, he returns to the customer, and collects the charges thereon; that the expenses of maintaining the route are borne by plaintiff that the defendant has for three years been employed by plaintiff as a driver and assigned to route No. 6; that the defendant was a trusted employee, and while in the service of plaintiff acquired knowledge of and access to all the customers of plaintiff on said route; that the defendant left the employ of plaintiff on September 3, 1921, without any previous notice, and without any opportunity to the plaintiff to procure another driver for said route; that while in the employ of plaintiff, and without its knowledge or permission, defendant advised customers of plaintiff on said route that he intended to go into business for himself, and induced them to substitute his service for that of plaintiff and on the 5th day of September, abusing the confidence imposed in him, collected laundry bundles from about 45 of plaintiff's customers on said route, which number represents about 90 per cent. of those who usually send their work to plaintiff on the first trip Monday morning, and turned the work over to some other laundry; that defendant was able to do this because of the knowledge of plaintiff's customers acquired by him while in its service, and by virtue of his representation of it; that a few days before leaving plaintiff's employ defendant told plaintiff he had no intention of leaving, and at that time was undermining its business by attempting to entice its customers away from it; that, if he is permitted to solicit the business and patronage of plaintiff on said route, great and irreparable damage will be done to plaintiff in its said business.

The theory of appellant is that the list of customers of appellant is a trade secret, and that an employee who has obtained the names of customers and has acquired his good standing with them by reason of the opportunity derived from his employment should not be permitted to use such information, or capitalize his popularity thus acquired, to the injury of his employer after the termination of his service.

We have been referred to no decisions of this court, nor have we been able to find any, bearing directly on this question. The decisions in this country and in England seem to be fairly harmonious in principle as to the duty of courts to protect owners of trade secrets from disclosure by employees, but the divergences begin when the question to be determined in particular cases is whether the thing sought to be protected should be classed as a trade secret. And this is the real...