Pie Development v. Pie Ins Holdings ( 2023 )

Case: 21-60593 Document: 00516695055 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/30/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
March 30, 2023
No. 21-60593 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Pie Development, L.L.C.,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Pie Insurance Holdings, Incorporated; Pie Insurance
Services, Incorporated; Dax Craig; John Swigart,
Defendants—Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi
USDC No. 3:19-CV-792
Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Elrod and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Pie Development appeals the district court’s dismissal of its
misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unjust enrichment,
and civil conspiracy claims. Because Pie Development did not sufficiently
plead that it took reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of its business
plan, and its other claims hinge on the misappropriation, we affirm.
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 21-60593 Document: 00516695055 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/30/2023
No. 21-60593
I
AmFed National Insurance Company (AmFed) is a workers’
compensation insurance provider and a wholly-owned subsidiary of AmFed
Holding Company, LLC (AmFed Holding). AmFed signed a nondisclosure
agreement (NDA) with Valen Technologies, Inc. (Valen)—a company that
consults for insurers—covering the two entities’ potential business
relationship. Pie Development is an LLC whose only member is AmFed
Holding. Billy Roberts, the president of AmFed, directed Greg McLemore
to create Pie Development.
The only progress toward creating Pie Development as pled in the
complaint was filing a certificate of formation, receiving a D-U-N-S Number
from Dun & Bradstreet, creating an email account, and obtaining a
placeholder “Pie” application from Apple. Roberts had a breakfast meeting
with Dax Craig, the president of Valen, where Roberts explained his plan for
an application that “would be named ‘Pie’” and would “make purchasing
workers’ compensation insurance . . . ‘as easy as pie.’” “[T]he concept
behind Pie is that an employer seeking to obtain a workers’ compensation
insurance quote would input into the Pie application minimal information
consisting only of a few data points.” “[U]sing that minimal information,
the Pie application would access various available data sources and provide a
workers’ compensation insurance quote to the potential Pie customer” who
could then purchase insurance through the application. The whole process
“would only take a few minutes.” That information is Pie Development’s
business plan and its alleged trade secret.
Neither Roberts nor Craig signed the AmFed/Valen NDA, which
covered only AmFed and Valen—not AmFed Holding or Pie Development.
Neither Pie Development nor Pie Insurance existed when the NDA was
signed. Further, the NDA covered information that was, “if disclosed
orally, . . . either confirmed thereafter promptly in writing as confidential or
2
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proprietary or [which] should, from the totality of the circumstances, be
understood to be confidential or proprietary.” The complaint does not allege
that at any time during or after the meeting Roberts told the participants that
information discussed at the breakfast meeting was confidential or covered
under the NDA.
The complaint alleges that Craig disclosed the Pie Development
business plan to John Swigart, who created Pie Insurance about a year after
the breakfast meeting. Pie Insurance then began to operate and raise capital.
The Pie Insurance website explains that the company sells workers’
compensation insurance without an agent, can provide “an online quote in 3
minutes,” and makes “workers[’] comp as easy as pie.” Roberts learned of
Pie Insurance seventeen months after the breakfast meeting, but waited two
years after that to file this suit.
Pie Development’s complaint asking for, among other forms of relief,
over $65 million in damages, was dismissed without prejudice in a twenty-
three-page opinion that explained the deficiencies of the complaint and gave
Pie Development thirty days to amend. Instead of amending, Pie
Development filed this appeal.
II
The complaint alleged a misappropriation of trade secrets claim under
both the Mississippi Uniform Trade Secrets Act (MUTSA) and the federal
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). “We review de novo a district court’s
dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and
viewing those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.”1 To survive
1
Warren v. Chesapeake Expl., L.L.C., 759 F.3d 413, 415 (5th Cir. 2014) (citing Doe
ex rel. Magee v. Covington Cnty. Sch. Dist. ex rel. Keys, 675 F.3d 849, 854 (5th Cir. 2012) (en
banc)).
3
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such a motion, “heightened fact pleading of specifics” is not required.2 A
plaintiff only needs to plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face” and to “nudg[e] [the plaintiff’s] claims across the line
from conceivable to plausible.”3 Information can only be a trade secret under
the DTSA if:
(A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep
such information secret; and (B) the information derives
independent economic value, actual or potential, from not
being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable
through proper means by, another person who can obtain
economic value from the disclosure or use of the information.4
The MUTSA trade secret definition is substantively identical.5
Assuming arguendo that Pie Development has sufficiently pled that its
business plan could be a trade secret, it did not plead enough facts to illustrate
reasonable measures were taken to keep its business plan a secret. Pie
Development argues that the AmFed/Valen NDA illustrates reasonable
measures. The NDA is not a measure taken by “the owner” of this trade
secret—Pie Development—at all, much less a reasonable measure.6 Pie
2
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007).
3
Id.4
18 U.S.C. § 1839(3).
5
See Miss. Code Ann. § 75–26–3(d) (“‘Trade secret’ means
information . . . that: (i) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not
being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other
persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and (ii) Is the subject of
efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.”).
6
18 U.S.C. § 1839(3); cf. United States v. Wen Chyu Liu, 716 F.3d 159, 162 (5th Cir.
2013) (identifying an NDA and restricted access to the information as evidence of efforts
to keep the information secret when the company “took extensive physical and legal
security precautions to protect its technology and the processes used,” including that the
very employee alleged to have misappropriated the trade secret signed an NDA promising
4
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Development did not exist at the time that NDA was signed, and none of the
participants at the breakfast meeting, including Roberts and Craig, were
signatories to the NDA. AmFed, a separate company under the AmFed
Holding umbrella, is the one who signed the NDA with Valen. The NDA
was not “reasonable under the circumstances” to protect the Pie business
plan when it prohibited assignment and did not mention Pie Development or
the Pie application.7 The NDA also only covered oral information that was
confirmed in writing or understood to be confidential. There is no allegation
in the complaint that the meeting participants understood or were ever told
that the meeting or information shared was confidential, proprietary, or
subject to the AmFed/Valen NDA.
Further, the complaint alleges that Pie Development learned of the
existence of Pie Insurance in 2017 but waited two years without sending any
cease-and-desist letter or requesting any preliminary injunctive relief. Pie
Development cannot now assert a claim to all the capital Pie Insurance
obtained while Pie Development delayed. The district court did not err in
dismissing this claim.
III
The tortious interference, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy
claims likewise fail. Because Pie Development did not allege enough facts to
support its misappropriation of trade secrets claim, there are insufficient
allegations for the existence of “unlawful purpose” as a basis for its tortious
“not to disclose confidential and trade secret information to third parties,” and was
reminded of this letter after he retired and before he started his new company).
7
Miss. Code Ann. § 75–26–3(d); see also 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3).
5
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interference claim.8 The unjust enrichment claim likewise fails because Pie
Development’s own complaint alleges that it waited for more than two years
without taking any reasonable measures to protect its trade secrets. The
complaint thus fails to state sufficient allegations that Pie Development is
entitled to repayment in “equity and good conscience,” which is a necessary
condition to prevail under the unjust enrichment claim.9 Finally, because Pie
Development did not adequately plead either misappropriation of trade
secrets or unjust enrichment, there is no underlying tort or wrong on which
its claim of civil conspiracy can rest.10 We affirm the dismissal of each claim.
IV
Pie Development’s request for an opportunity to file an amended
complaint is denied. The district court gave Pie Development thirty days to
amend its complaint when granting the motion to dismiss. The district
court’s twenty-three-page opinion provided a roadmap for curing the
deficiencies in Pie Development’s complaint and surviving a motion to
dismiss. Pie Development declined to amend, instead filing this appeal, and
now asks us to grant leave to amend. “A party who neglects to ask the district
8
MBF Corp. v. Century Bus. Commc’ns, Inc., A Subsidiary of Century Tel. Enters.,
Inc., 663 So. 2d 595, 598 (Miss. 1995) (quoting Nichols v. Tri-State Brick & Tile Co., 608 So.
2d 324, 328 (Miss. 1992)).
9
Willis v. Rehab Sols., PLLC, 82 So. 3d 583, 588 (Miss. 2012) (citing Union Nat’l
Life Ins. Co. v. Crosby, 870 So. 2d 1175, 1180 (Miss. 2004)).
10
See Rex Distrib. Co., Inc. v. Anheuser-busch, LLC, 271 So. 3d 445, 455 (Miss.
2019).
6
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court for leave to amend cannot expect to receive such a dispensation from
the court of appeals.”11 For this reason, we deny the request to amend.
* * *
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
11
United States ex rel. Willard v. Humana Health Plan of Tex. Inc., 336 F.3d 375, 387
(5th Cir. 2003) (citing Vega–Rodriguez v. Puerto Rico Tel. Co., 110 F.3d 174, 183-84 (1st Cir.
1997)); see also Badeaux v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 790 F. App’x 618, 621 (5th Cir. 2019) (per
curiam) (unpublished) (“Badeaux never moved to amend his complaint in the district
court. . . . And Badeaux has not indicated ‘specifically how he would amend his complaint
to overcome the 12(b)(6) dismissal.’ To the contrary, Badeaux has repeatedly ‘declare[d]
the adequacy of his complaint,’ both in his response to the motion to dismiss and in his
brief to this court. For these reasons, we deny Badeaux’s request [for remand with leave
to amend].” (citations omitted)).
7