## Facts

- Briefing.com operated an internet-based financial market analysis service; Richard C. Green was its president and majority shareholder.
- Gregory Jones and Cynthia Dietzmann worked for Briefing.com in Wyoming and left the company in early 2003.
- Briefing.com alleged that Jones and Dietzmann had access to confidential business information while employed and used it to help form or operate StreetAccount LLC, alleged to be a competitor.
- Briefing.com and Green sued Jones, Dietzmann, and StreetAccount in federal district court in Wyoming, asserting (among other theories) misappropriation of trade secrets and/or confidential information under Wyoming common law.
- Defendants moved to dismiss that common-law misappropriation claim, contending Wyoming law did not recognize it.
- The federal district court certified questions to the Wyoming Supreme Court asking whether such a common-law cause of action exists and, if so, its elements.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyoming recognizes a common-law cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets and/or confidential information against former employees alleged to have used such information to start a competing business.
2. If so, what are the elements of that common-law cause of action.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court answered the first certified question “no,” declining to adopt a new common-law tort for misappropriation of trade secrets or confidential information.
- Because Wyoming would not recognize the proposed common-law claim, the court did not provide elements for it and treated the second question as moot.
- The court reasoned that the Wyoming Uniform Trade Secrets Act (WUTSA) supplies the governing statutory framework for trade-secret misappropriation and that recognizing a parallel common-law claim would risk duplicating or conflicting with the statute’s definitions and remedies.
- The court expressed concern that a broad “confidential information” misappropriation tort could circumvent WUTSA by imposing liability for information that does not meet the statutory trade-secret definition.
- A dissent would have been more receptive to a complementary common-law remedy, but the majority view controlled.

## Legal Principles

- Wyoming courts will not create an independent common-law tort for “misappropriation of trade secrets and/or confidential information” that would operate alongside or beyond WUTSA.
- WUTSA functions as the controlling source of rights and remedies for trade-secret misappropriation, using statutory definitions for “trade secret” and “misappropriation.”
- Claims concerning misuse of business information must fit within WUTSA’s statutory framework to proceed as trade-secret misappropriation; non-trade-secret “confidential information” cannot be protected through a free-standing misappropriation tort.
- The decision does not foreclose other established causes of action (such as contract-based or duty-based claims) when supported by applicable law and facts; it rejects only the proposed stand-alone common-law misappropriation claim.

## Conclusion

The Wyoming Supreme Court refused to recognize a new common-law cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets or confidential information, holding that trade-secret misappropriation is governed by WUTSA and that an additional common-law tort would improperly expand or bypass the statute’s limits.


Briefing.com v. Jones, 126 P.3d 928 (Wyo. 2006)