Contemporary Services Corp. v. Landmark Event Staffing Services, Inc. , 455 F. App'x 760 ( 2011 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION OCT 27 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
CONTEMPORARY SERVICES No. 09-56473, 09-56662
CORPORATION,
D.C. No. 8:09-CV-00681-AG-AN
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. MEMORANDUM *
LANDMARK EVENT STAFFING
SERVICES, INC., PETER KRANSKE
and MICHAEL HARRISON,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Andrew J. Guilford, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted May 5, 2011
Pasadena, California
Before: HAWKINS and REINHARDT, Circuit Judges, and COGAN,
District Judge.**
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided
by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The Honorable Brian M. Cogan, U. S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York,
Brooklyn, sitting by designation.
Plaintiff Contemporary Services Corporation (“CSC”) appeals from the
dismissal of its complaint on preclusion grounds. We reverse the District Court’s
decision and remand the case for further proceedings.
The District Court held that CSC’s claims for trade-secret misappropriation,
unfair competition and computer fraud, among others, were barred by the entry of
a consent judgment in a prior trade-secret lawsuit filed in Washington Superior
Court against former CSC and current Landmark employee Grant Haskell. We
find, however, that the alleged actions of Landmark and the other defendants in
authorizing Haskell’s conduct and subsequently utilizing CSC’s proprietary
information are separate from and additional to those of Haskell in initially
misappropriating the information. CSC could have, but need not have, brought all
claims in the Washington action. See Seattle-First Nat’l Bank v. Kawachi,
91 Wash. 2d 223, 226-27 (1978).
Furthermore, CSC should be allowed the opportunity to amend its complaint
to allege sufficient factual matter to comply with the pleading standard enunciated
in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009). See Moss v. U.S. Secret Serv., 572 F.3d 962, 969 (9th Cir.
2009).
Finally, the District Court acted within its discretion in denying attorney fees
to defendants pursuant to California Civil Code Section 3426.4. See CRST Van
Expedited, Inc. v. Werner Enters., Inc., 479 F.3d 1099, 1111 (9th Cir. 2007).
REVERSED and REMANDED.