## Facts

- Corroon & Black-Rutters & Roberts, Inc. operated as a general insurance agency after acquiring the Roberts Company and its accounts in 1973.
- Jack Hosch, an insurance agent licensed since 1958, worked first for Roberts and then for Corroon & Black after the acquisition.
- At the time of the 1973 acquisition, Hosch signed a covenant not to compete that expired on December 31, 1977; he entered no later noncompete agreement.
- After the covenant expired, Hosch left and worked for a competing agency.
- Corroon & Black discovered multiple agent-of-record letters shifting accounts to Hosch’s new agency and alleged Hosch solicited clients using customer lists and policy expiration information taken from Corroon & Black’s files.
- The customer files were kept in unlocked cabinets accessible to various employees; many accounts serviced by Hosch had originally been brought to the agency by Hosch.
- A substantial portion of Hosch’s former clients transferred their business to him after he left.

## Issues

1. Whether an insurance agent’s use of a former employer’s customer list and policy expiration information to solicit clients constitutes actionable unfair competition based on misappropriation of trade secrets or confidential information under Wisconsin law.

## Decision

- The jury found Hosch engaged in unfair competition by using confidential information and awarded compensatory and punitive damages to Corroon & Black.
- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed and directed entry of judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) for Hosch.
- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed, holding the customer information and expiration data did not qualify as protectable trade secrets and could not support liability for unfair competition.

## Legal Principles

- Customer lists and related client information are not automatically trade secrets; protection depends on whether the information is sufficiently secret, not readily ascertainable, and subject to reasonable measures to maintain secrecy.
- Information developed in the ordinary course of servicing accounts, consisting of customer identities and policy expiration dates, may lack the secrecy and distinctiveness needed for trade secret status.
- Failure to take reasonable steps to preserve secrecy (e.g., leaving files in unlocked, broadly accessible locations) weighs strongly against trade secret protection.
- Trade secret doctrine will not be used to replicate a noncompete restriction after a covenant not to compete has expired, consistent with public policy favoring lawful competition and employee mobility.

## Conclusion

Because the customer names and policy expiration data were ordinary business information not protected as trade secrets and were not maintained with reasonable secrecy, Hosch’s post-employment solicitation after his noncompete expired was not actionable unfair competition, and judgment for Hosch was upheld.


Corroon & Black-Rutters & Roberts, Inc. v. Hosch, 109 Wis. 2d 290, 325 N.W.2d 883 (Wis. 1982)