## Facts

- Town & Country House and Homes Service, Inc. operated a housecleaning business serving customers in Connecticut and New York.
- Kenneth Evans worked for the company from May 1957 to March 1960 performing housecleaning services at customers’ homes.
- The company commonly required employees to sign a restrictive covenant; Evans was asked to sign but refused, and he was employed without one.
- Near the end of his employment, Evans told a number of the company’s customers he planned to start his own business and solicited their future patronage.
- After resigning, Evans began a competing housecleaning business and obtained about fifteen regular customers, including some former customers of Town & Country.
- Town & Country sued alleging (1) breach of duties arising from the employment relationship and (2) misappropriation of trade secrets/confidential information, principally its customer list.
- The trial court found the relationship was an ordinary employment relationship; Evans was not entrusted with confidential communications; there was “nothing secret” about the customer list; and, absent fraud or an express restrictive covenant, Evans could compete and solicit the company’s customers.
- Judgment entered for Evans; Town & Country appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Town & Country’s customer list and related customer information could qualify as a protectable trade secret or confidential information.
2. Whether, even without an express post-employment restrictive covenant, an employee may be restrained from using an employer’s protectable customer information to solicit the employer’s customers.
3. Whether the trial court applied correct legal standards in concluding the customer list was not secret and that the lack of a noncompete was dispositive.
4. Whether the plaintiff was entitled on appeal to additions to the trial court’s findings as “admitted or undisputed.”

## Decision

- The Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s effort to expand the trial court’s findings merely because evidence was uncontradicted; credibility and factfinding remained for the trial court.
- The Court held the trial court’s broad conclusion that there was “nothing secret” about the customer list failed to apply proper trade-secret analysis.
- The Court reaffirmed that customer lists can be trade secrets when developed through substantial effort and expense and not readily ascertainable through ordinary business sources.
- The Court held that the absence of a noncompetition agreement does not, by itself, permit a former employee to use the employer’s protectable trade secrets or confidential customer information.
- The Court set aside the judgment for the defendant and ordered a new trial under the correct legal standards.

## Legal Principles

- Information that is public or generally known in an industry is not a trade secret.
- A customer list may be a trade secret when the customer identities and patronage were obtained through substantial time, effort, and expense and are not readily ascertainable through ordinary business channels (including common directories).
- Relevant factors in assessing trade-secret status include the extent of public and internal knowledge, secrecy measures, value to the business and competitors, development cost, and ease of proper acquisition or duplication.
- Employees remain free to compete after leaving employment in the absence of a valid restrictive covenant, but they may not use or disclose the former employer’s trade secrets or protectable confidential information obtained through the employment relationship.
- A trial court may not treat the absence of an express covenant as dispositive if the case turns on alleged misuse of trade secrets or confidential customer information.

## Conclusion

The Connecticut Supreme Court ordered a new trial because the trial court treated the lack of a noncompete and a generalized view of “non-secrecy” as controlling, without properly determining whether the employer’s customer information qualified as a trade secret or protectable confidential information that a former employee may not appropriate in competing.


Town & Country House & Homes Serv., Inc. v. Evans, 150 Conn. 314 (1963)