Fulton Grand Laundry Co. v. Johnson

³⁶⁰ Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is au appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer to the bill of complaint filed by appellant, and dissolving a preliminary injunction which had been previously granted. The allegations of the bill, so far as it is necessary to recite them, are substantially as follows: That plaintiff is a corporation. engaged in the general laundry business at No. 1719 East .Oliver Street in Baltimore City; that the most valuable asset of the said business is the good will thereof which has been created by a course of dealing with customers for a number of years, which customers were secured only after great labor and expense; that plaintiff draws business from all that portion of said city lying east of Charles Street, which section is divided by plaintiff into districts or routes, one of which is designated No. 6; that a driver, who also acts as a solicitor for new work, is assigned to each route and is given a list of customers thereon from whom he receives laundry bundles which he takes to the plant and which, after they are laundered, he returns to the customer and collects the charges thereon; that the expenses of' maintaining the route, are borne by plaintiff; that the defendant has for three years been employed by plaintiff as a driver and assigned to route' No. 6; that the defendant was a trusted employee, and while iu the service of plaintiff acquired knowledge of, and access to, all the customers of plaintiff on said route; .that the defendant left the employ of plaintiff on September 3d, 1921, without any-previous notice and without any opportunity to the plaintiff to procure another driver for said route; that while iu the employ of plaintiff and without its knowledge; or permission, defendant .advised customers of plaintiff on said route that he intended to go into business for himself and induced them to substitute his service for that of plaintiff, and on the 5th day of September, abusing the confidence imposed in him, collected laundry bundles from about forty-five of plaintiff’s customers on said route, which number represents about ninety per cent of those who usually send ³⁶¹ their work to plaintiff on tlie first trip Monday morning, and turned the work over to some other laundry; that defendant was able to do this because of the knowledge of plaintiff’s customers acquired by him while in its service and by virtue of bis representation of it; that a few days before leaving plaintiff’s employ defendant told plaintiff he had no intention of leaving, and at that time was undermining its business by attempting to entice its customers away from it; that if he is permitted to solicit the business and patronage of plaintiff on said route, great and irreparable damage will be done to plaintiff in its said business. The theory of appellant is that the list of customers of appellant is a trade secret, and that an employee who has obtained the names of customers and lias acquired his good standing with them by reason of the opportunity derived from his employment, should not he permitted to use such information, or capitalize his popularity thus acquired, to the injury of his employer after tlie termination of his service.

We have been referred to no decisions of this Court, nor have we been able to find any, bearing directly on this question. The decisions in this country and in England seem to be fairly harmonious in principle as to the duty of courts fi> protect owners of trade secrets from disclosure by employees, but tbe divergences begin when tbe question to be determined in particular cases is,