Evans v. Presidio Trust

Background

Robert Evans, representing himself, sued Presidio Trust for alleged trade-secret misappropriation under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Evans alleged that he had disclosed trade secrets to Presidio Trust on two occasions in 1998. He described the alleged secrets as methods, patterns, processes, or techniques intended to help Presidio Trust become financially self-sufficient.

Evans had already filed an original complaint, a first amended complaint, and a second amended complaint. The court had previously identified problems with the level of detail about the alleged trade secrets. While Presidio Trust’s motion to dismiss the second amended complaint was pending, Evans filed a proposed third amended complaint without first obtaining the required consent or court permission. The court struck that filing as improper. Evans then asked for permission to file it.

Rulings

The court granted Presidio Trust’s motion to dismiss and denied Evans’s motion for leave to file a third amended complaint.

First, the court held that Evans’s federal trade-secret claim was barred by sovereign immunity, meaning the government generally cannot be sued without an unequivocal statutory waiver. The court described Presidio Trust as a wholly owned government corporation and found that Evans had not identified, and the court had not found, a provision in the federal trade-secret statute that waived the federal government’s immunity. The court also rejected Evans’s suggestion that the Federal Tort Claims Act supplied a jurisdictional basis for the federal trade-secret claim, explaining that statute’s waiver did not apply to this claim. The court therefore concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the federal claim.

Second, the court ruled that the allegations were also insufficient under the rule requiring a complaint to state a plausible claim for relief. Under the federal and California trade-secret statutes, a plaintiff must identify the alleged trade secrets with enough particularity to distinguish them from general knowledge. The court found that Evans’s descriptions, including the materials filed under seal, stated only a broad scheme for obtaining money by allowing people to reside and work in the Presidio. The court found that description indistinguishable from matters of general knowledge and insufficient to identify protectable trade secrets.

The court stated that the proposed third amended complaint continued to have the same deficiencies and relied on the same insufficient documentation. It dismissed the action without leave to amend, denied the motion to file the third amended complaint, and directed the clerk to close the case. The court did not decide Presidio Trust’s separate argument that the California claim was defective because Evans sued Presidio Trust rather than the United States.