## Facts

- Pestco, Inc. and Associated Products, Inc. (API) were direct competitors selling deodorizing and air-freshening products in the public restroom supply industry.
- Both companies used a common carrier, Watkins Motor Lines, Inc. (WML), to ship products.
- WML prepared Pestco’s bills of lading for shipments; the documents identified Pestco’s customers and shipment destinations but did not list specific products or prices.
- A WML driver showed Pestco’s bills of lading to API employees, allowing API to learn Pestco’s customer identities and shipping patterns.
- Pestco sued, asserting trade secret misappropriation (treating the bills of lading as customer-list information), misappropriation of confidential business information, and property-based tort theories including trespass to chattels.
- The trial court entered a permanent injunction barring API from using or disclosing information derived from Pestco’s bills of lading, awarded $1 in compensatory damages, and awarded $25,000 in punitive damages.

## Issues

1. Whether customer and destination information appearing on Pestco’s bills of lading constituted a trade secret under Pennsylvania law.
2. Whether acquiring and using information from another’s bills of lading can support trespass to chattels or similar property-based tort liability when the alleged interference concerns intangible information.
3. Whether a competitor may be liable for obtaining another’s non-trade-secret business information by improper means under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 759.
4. Whether a $25,000 punitive-damages award, paired with $1 compensatory damages, and a permanent injunction were legally supportable and consistent with due process.

## Decision

- The court held the bills-of-lading information was not a trade secret because it was general in nature and readily obtainable from other sources.
- The court held trespass to chattels did not apply to the acquisition or use of purely intangible information.
- The court nonetheless affirmed liability under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 759 because API procured Pestco’s business information by improper means and used it to advance its competitive interests.
- The court affirmed the permanent injunction and the $1 compensatory damages award.
- The court vacated the $25,000 punitive damages award as excessive and disproportionate in relation to nominal compensatory damages and insufficiently supported by the level of reprehensibility required by due process.

## Legal Principles

- Customer and shipment-identifying information does not qualify as a trade secret where it is general and readily obtainable through other lawful sources.
- Trespass to chattels protects interference with tangible personal property and does not extend to intangible information as such.
- Under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 759, a competitor may be liable for procuring another’s business information by improper means even if the information is not a trade secret.
- Permanent injunctive relief may be appropriate to prevent continued use of improperly obtained business information, even where monetary damages are nominal.
- Punitive damages must be proportionate to actual harm and supported by sufficiently egregious conduct to satisfy constitutional due process constraints.

## Conclusion

The court rejected trade-secret and trespass-to-chattels theories for bills-of-lading customer data, but sustained relief because API obtained the information by improper means under Restatement § 759; it left in place nominal damages and an injunction while setting aside punitive damages as constitutionally excessive.


Pestco, Inc. v. Associated Prods., Inc., 880 A.2d 700 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2005)