A Philadelphia Federal District Court held that an accountant who used his computer to copy information about his previous employer’s clients to share with his new employer did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. 1030, but the act might have been in violation of the fiduciary duty owed to his employer by soliciting clients for his new employer while still working for his old employer. The case is Brett Senior & Assocs. v. Fitzgerald, E.D. Pa., No. 06-1412, 7/13/07.

The defendant, Stephen Fitzgerald, was an accountant who was employed by the law firm of Brett Senior & Associates since 1989. He did not sign an employment agreement at the time he was hired but in 1999 he signed a conflict of interest agreement that said employees were not allowed to "disclose to a competitor confidential or proprietary information, including client lists, if the information is not generally known to the public."

The Story

In early 2005, Fitzgerald interviewed for a job with Fesnak & Associates. In November 2006, Fitzgerald told BSA that he had accepted a job with Fesnak and just before leaving BSA a month later, Fitzgerald copied tax information from his work files information regarding BSA clients. BSA warned Fitzgerald not to use confidential information; however, Fitzgerald approached 20 clients to follow him to Fesnak and 15 of those 20 did. Subsequently more clients followed Fitzgerald to his new employer. As a result, BSA sued, alleging, among other claims, that Fitzgerald violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The Court’s Holding

The court’s reasoning in dismissing the computer fraud claim under section 1030 was that a computer fraud claim must show an unauthorized procurement or alteration, not mere misuse or misappropriation. The court said that 10 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4)  prohibits the unauthorized procurement or alteration of information, not its misuse or misappropriation. Because Fitzgerald had full and legally authorized access to BSA’s computer system when he copied the information before he left the firm, the court could not hold that he accessed BSA’s computers without authorization or that he exceeded his authorization.

The court, however, held that Fitzgerald’s actions may constitute a breach of fiduciary duty because Fitzgerald contacted 20 BSA clients to join him in moving to Fesnak while he was still employed at BSA.

Split of Authority?

The outcome of this case on the computer fraud claim is interesting because it goes against what other courts have held in the past. We wrote in August 2006, on similar facts in Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Speed (M.D. Fla.,) that an employee who copies computer files prior to departing for a rival firm has not "exceed[ed] authorized access" as that key phrase is defined under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Fitzgerald case and the Lockheed Marting cases have similar outcome on somewhat similar facts. However, they both seem to contradict what the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held earlier in 2006.

Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit in International Airport Centers LLC v. Citrin, 440 F.3d 420 (7th Cir. 2006), held that CFAA imposed liability on the premise that the employee’s authorization vanished once he breached a duty of loyalty to the employer. Presumably, this may be long before the employee is terminated, so the employee "exceeds authorization" whenever he or she takes substantial steps towards breaching the duty of loyalty to the original employer - e.g. contracting a competitor, etc.

The Fitzgerald court held that he may have breached the fiduciary duty owed to his current employer by copying information to be used for the new employer. If the court had followed Judge Posner’s Citrin reasoning, then the Fitzgerald outcome must have come out differently because Fitzgerald breached his duty of loyalty before he was terminated (or quit) and he accessed BSA’s computer systems during and after this breach. Therefore,  in the Seventh Circuit, this case should have came out the other way.

Is Citrin the Rule of the Exception?

It is unclear. Citrin certainly provides good Circuit Court authority for employers who want to go after they departing employees for breach of loyalty under the CFAA. But District Court opinions such as Fitzgerald and Lockheed Martin may slowly start undermining Citrin’s authority and gradually lead to its rejection in other circuits.

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