California Intelligence Bureau v. Cunningham’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 4 district · 52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently October 1999 · most notably 25 Cal. 3d 813 - Lugosi v. Universal Pictures (1979), Town & Country House & Homes Service, Inc. v. Evans (1963)
6 federal appellate · 4 district · 52 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Continental Car-Na-Var Corp. v. Moseley · Empire Steam Laundry v. Lozier · 122 Cal. App. 627 - Avocado Sales Co. v. Wyse · Tuttle v. Buck · George v. Burdusis
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the former employee is in possession of trade or business secrets or confidential information, or the like, not readily accessible to others; (2) the former employee solicits the customers of his former employer in a competing business with intent to injure his former employer’s business; (3) the former employee solicits the customers of his former employer, who comprise a list of preferred customers whose trade is profitable to a supplier of a service, knowledge of whom is a trade secret and confidential; (4) one concern is usually patronized by a customer and the lists and names and addresses of the customers are considered secret and have the character of property; (5) there is an established business relationship between the customer and the former employer which, unless interfered with, normally continues.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““. . . (1) the customers solicited (a) do not constitute a trade secret, or confidential information, or a confidential list in which a proprietary interest might be claimed, or (b) are commonly known to the trade and are called upon by salesmen for various companies, or are wholesale buyers whose names appear in directories and are so few in number that anyone might readily discover them, and the list of them is not secret or confidential; (2) the former employer is in open competition with others engaged in similar business, selling in an open, competitive market; (3) the former employee was a salesman of his former employer in a commercial field where there was no assurance of an order unless he could satisfy his customer that his product was better, cheaper, or more salable than that of his competitor, where the customer usually desired to examine, inspect and compare the product and prices offered to him and each sale was a distinct transaction, not necessarily implying that another will follow; (4) no secret or trust reposed in the former employee in the course of his employment is violated and no trade or business secret or confidential information is used by the former employee.” (Italics ours.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“is whether in a given case the knowledge gained by an employee is secret and confidential.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.