JULIE A. ROBINSON, District Judge.
This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff Retiree, Inc.'s ("Retiree") Complaint against Defendants Dana Anspach ("Anspach") and Sensible Money, LLC, seeking to permanently enjoin Defendants from violating the parties' confidentiality and non-compete agreement (the "Agreement") and to enforce the liquidated damages provision contained in the Agreement. Specifically, in Count I Retiree seeks a permanent injunction barring Defendants from the continued use of the Sensible Money website in its current form and from all marketing and promotional efforts, including the dissemination of written materials, which incorporate the alleged proprietary and confidential information Anspach obtained from Retiree, plus attorneys' fees and costs. Under Count II, Retiree alleges breach of contract and seeks damages pursuant to the Agreement's liquidated damages clause, which authorizes Retiree to recover $250,000 for each breach of the Agreement. The Court previously held an evidentiary hearing on Retiree's Motion for Preliminary Injunction, and entered a Memorandum and Order granting the Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 51). The Court subsequently held a bench trial to determine whether a permanent injunction and liquidated damages should be awarded. Retiree has also filed a Motion for Contempt (Doc. 57), moving the Court to hold Anspach in contempt for violation of the Court's preliminary injunction.
The Court's Memorandum and Order (Doc. 51) sets forth the facts underlying this action and the Court will not restate them, but rather will incorporate them and only set forth additional evidence presented at trial.
This action arises from the confidentiality and non-compete Agreement
The financial planning industry has niches and specialities; Meyer and Anspach both focused on retirees. Both Meyer and Anspach are accomplished in their field; both are authors, as well as speakers in demand at various seminars and conferences in the financial planning field. However, Retiree occupies a unique position in the retirement industry; it is the first and most accomplished firm operating in the decumulation area with a focus on the coordination of Social Security claiming strategies, asset location, asset allocation, withdrawal sequencing and tax minimization. Each of the five coordinates represents a complex specialization, and the coordination of them makes it exponentially more complicated.
Meyer focused far more on asset location and social security claiming strategies than Anspach did. In fact, Meyer worked closely with Dr. William Reichenstein, CFA, PhD, who is a leading authority on after-tax and before-tax asset allocation and tax-efficient withdrawal strategies and Social Security claiming strategies.
Nonetheless, Meyer and Anspach were interested in merging their practices for professional as well as personal reasons. Professionally, they recognized that Anspach, a certified financial planner ("CFP") and Retirement Management Analyst ("RMA"),
But this case is not about Anspach violating the confidentiality and non-disclosure contract by appropriating Retiree's software. To be sure, Anspach had prolonged access to, and in fact worked with the Excel Quickstart Model of the software, in advising clients during the months that she and Retiree worked together as they anticipated an imminent merger. But the Quickstart Model did not contain most of the algorithms, formulas and details that were in Retiree's "Big Model." The Big Model was the product of five years of Meyer's development of processes and methodologies in collaboration with mathematicians and engineers who wrote algorithms and formulas and five years of software development by developers Meyers contracted with to produce the software.
Rather, this case is about Anspach violating the confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement by appropriating the processes and methodology that underlay Retiree's software and practices. While Anspach did not have full access to the Big Model, she had significant exposure to it, including participating in a five hour sales presentation Retiree made to American Funds, as it attempted to sell an enterprise license for American Funds' use of the software. During this five hour presentation, Anspach witnessed the Big Model in operation and was privy to detailed explanations that Retiree gave to American Funds regarding the details of the Big Model and the underlying processes. Retiree closely guarded this information; it entered into a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement with American Funds and other potential clientele, as well as confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements with others who worked on the product, including the software developers. Retiree also limited exposure to the Big Model. Meyer testified that after five years of development, only six people have seen the Big Model.
Over the course of a four day Preliminary Injunction hearing in November, 2012 and January 2013, and a four day trial on the Complaint in November 2013, the Court heard much about Retiree's business, Anspach's business, the financial planning industry, and software products produced and utilized by others in the financial planning industry. Much of Anspach's defense centered on the fact that there are common elements of financial planning with respect to retirees or those nearing retirement, and that Retiree's processes and methodologies were not unique, nor protectible as proprietary, confidential information. But, the strongest evidence that Retiree's processes and methodologies (not to mention its software) were in fact unique, novel and protectible, came from the pen and the voice of Anspach herself. In numerous emails, Anspach spoke of the novel, unique and cutting edge methodologies and processes of Retiree.
This trial centered around whether the post-merger methodologies, processes and tools Anspach claimed to develop on her own were in fact the product of her exposure to, and knowledge of certain confidential information of Retiree. There was abundant circumstantial evidence leading this Court to the conclusion that Anspach did violate the agreement with Retiree by using confidential information. First, when comparing the detail of Anspach's spreadsheets and the financial planning components that she considered and attempted to integrate with one another before the attempted merger and after, the evidence is compelling.
In February 2011, when Anspach first corresponded with Meyer, Anspach was using a spreadsheet entitled "What's Your Number?"
The spreadsheet also lacks asset allocation. Anspach's note on the spreadsheet stated that "[t]his section would have some type of algorithm that would prefill into ideal allocation." The spreadsheet also lacked asset location. Anspach's notes on the spreadsheet provided a broad directive: "Any gap is being pulled from the bond bucket below." The spreadsheet's lack of accurate federal tax and Social Security tax calculations prevented it from incorporating withdrawal sequencing. Without asset allocation and detailed federal and Social Security taxes, there can be no tax efficient drawdown.
This "What's Your Number?" spreadsheet clearly had gaps— as evidenced by Anspach's notes on the spreadsheet—that she needed help to fill in. By February 2011, Kim Morton and Anspach had worked together for six years in the retirement income industry. Anspach had been exposed to RIIA materials since 2009, she obtained the RMA designation in 2010. Thus, she was in a position to know what was going on in the retirement income industry. At that time, Anspach was using ExecPlan, which could run a projection based on one set of assumptions and generate an analysis.
During Anspach's affiliation with Retiree, Meyer explained to Anspach that there is no magic algorithm, but rather spreadsheets are patched together with detailed tax calculations and the engine of the Excel Model is the control tab, which is combined with a base and an optimized tab. The user inputs data into the spreadsheet and has the ability to modify the input. The input is then fed into a base projections spreadsheet and an optimized projections spreadsheet. The base and optimized spreadsheets are projections over a retiree's projected longevity or the coordination of a number of variables to determine how long a retiree's assets will last. The control tab feeds information into the arms of the engine and then the arms feed back into the control tab the results of the projections. The results of those projections allow the control tab to generate a visual side-by-side comparison. This allows the user to vary input to adjust the base and optimized outcomes. This was all shown to Anspach during her affiliation with Retiree.
Anspach decided not to join Retiree in July 2011. On August 21, 2011, Anspach showed Meyer a more-evolved spreadsheet that she claimed to have created.
Anspach's spreadsheet was even more detailed at the launch of her Sensible Money website in January 2012. The final version of Anspach's spreadsheet was referred to as "Spreadsheet 2.0." In correspondence from Anspach in June 2013, she discussed Spreadsheet 2.0 and claimed that it has "key differentiators" and that it does something no other tool does.
Anspach demonstrated Spreadsheet 2.0 at the trial. Defendants claim Spreadsheet 2.0 was cobbled together and not fully integrated. Some tabs could be deleted without effect and the Free Report was unconnected to everything else in the spreadsheet. Defendants point to the differences between Retiree's and Anspach's spreadsheets: Retiree's pdf printout is over 1,000 pages while Anspach's is 300 (and only 230 if abandoned tabs are not counted); Retiree's has fifty-nine tabs while Anspach's has twenty-four, only seven of which she actually uses; Retiree's has five to ten screens for inputting information while Anspach's has one; Retiree's calculates risk potential while Anspach's does not; Retiree's social security claiming strategies interact in its model while Anspach uses another social security calculator then puts the optimal strategy into her spreadsheet. Anspach also argues that she has used publicly available information to create her spreadsheets. However, she was exposed to Retiree's methodology of integrating various information into the Big Model.
Another strong piece of circumstantial evidence is the timeline or evolution of the development of Anspach's spreadsheets. Although it took Retiree over five years, using nationally recognized experts to develop a similar Excel model and business plan, in just six months (July 2011 to January 2012), Anspach commenced a new business without a detailed plan, launched a website, created a new marketing strategy; and her spreadsheets evolved from considering and evaluating two tabs in a non-integrated fashion, to considering and evaluating multiple components in a somewhat integrated fashion through the use of her interface tab, resulting in "key differentiators." The Court finds that Anspach's exposure to and use of Retiree's confidential information has enabled her to accelerate the development and commercial exploitation of the Sensible Money spreadsheet. Indeed, Anspach, in a series of emails with counsel and others, sought to investigate whether her spreadsheets could be protectible proprietary information as novel, unique and cutting-edge in the field.
Ironically, Anspach's defense included claims that her spreadsheet contained errors and was not as complete or detailed as Retiree's. To be sure, Anspach's spreadsheets were not as complete, detailed or integrated as Retiree's. But that is precisely the point of this action. In a relatively short period of time, Anspach rapidly evolved her spreadsheets to a state that was inferior to Retiree's, yet was indicative of the fact that the spreadsheets were based on a new base of knowledge she had acquired from Retiree and was using in violation of the Agreement. Anspach lacked access to certain algorithms and formulas. She lacked full access to the Big Model. Yet, in an abbreviated time, with her working knowledge and noted acumen in the financial planning field, she had managed to replicate parts of Retiree's spreadsheet, in substance and in similar form and format. This evidence leads the Court to a conclusion that Anspach did use certain confidential information in violation of the Agreement.
Anspach was given ample opportunity to review the Agreement prior to signing it.
Defendants place stock in the fact that Meyer did not attempt to enforce the Agreement when Anspach showed him the August 2011 spreadsheet and in December 2011 he vouched for her integrity. However, Meyer and Anspach had a personal relationship that continued after the end of their business relationship. Their personal communications ended, however, on December 24, 2011.
There is no question that the parties entered into the Agreement, or that the Agreement provides for a permanent injunction and contains a liquidated damages clause. The Court has also found that Anspach breached the Agreement. Therefore, the only issue left for the Court to determine is whether the Agreement is enforceable under Kansas law.
Defendants argue that the confidentiality, non-disclosure and non-compete provisions are contrary to public policy because they constitute a restraint of trade. The confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions prohibited Anspach from disclosing or using Retiree's Confidential Information other than for the purposes of her business with Retiree. The non-compete provision in the Agreement provides that "[f]or a period of five (5) years from the effective date of this Agreement, Recipient will not divert or attempt to divert from Owner any business Owner has enjoyed or solicited from its customers."
"In Kansas, it is well recognized that a restrictive covenant in an employment contract will only be applied to the extent it is reasonably necessary under the facts and circumstances of the particular case."
Defendants argue that the Agreement is too general as to the type of information being protected, and cite Puritan-Bennett Corp., for the proposition that "[h]iring agreements which restrict communication of ideas in general, rather than purely trade secrets, have been held unreasonable."
Defendants also argue that a confidentiality agreement, whose sole purpose is to avoid competition, rather than protect confidential information, is unreasonable and unenforceable, citing Weber v. Tillman.
Defendants argue that the liquidated damages clause constitutes is a penalty that is unenforceable as a matter of law. The Agreement provides that:
Prior to execution of the Agreement, Retiree made Anspach aware of the liquidated damages clause and explained its significance. Anspach was given ample opportunity to review and discuss the Agreement. Anspach did not object to the liquidated damages clause, although she objected to other provisions in the Agreement and successfully negotiated revisions to resolve those objections.
The policy under Kansas law "`is to permit mentally competent parties to arrange their own contracts and fashion their own remedies.'"
The Court finds that the use of a liquidated damages clause is particularly appropriate in this case because the damages suffered by Retiree are difficult, if not impossible, to calculate. Retiree claims that Defendants' use of Retiree's proprietary information is harming Retiree in an irreparable and incalculable manner by diminishing the novelty of Retiree's business model, by competing with Retiree in the decumulation segment of the retirement market, and by shifting recognition from Retiree to Anspach in professional, academic, advisor, and institutional circles. Retiree asserts that it cannot calculate the loss to its revenues, income, and goodwill resulting from Anspach's misappropriation. Given the magnitude of the universe of potential consumers, Retiree cannot possibly determine the number or identity of individuals diverted by Anspach's efforts. As Anspach has been marketing on the internet, her market is nationwide, if not international. Similarly, given the magnitude of the immense universe of potential advisors, Retiree cannot know the number of advisors that may have lost interest in Retiree's business offer as a result of Anspach's promotion of her spreadsheet. Lastly, Retiree cannot know which enterprises had harbored an interest in Retiree but either lost or diminished their interest. While Retiree could, perhaps, determine from one or more interested companies the loss of its going concern value, Retiree can only speculate about the loss in the value of its goodwill attributable to financial institutions' altered perspective on Retiree.
The Court must also determine whether the set amount of liquidated damages is reasonable. To determine whether a liquidated damages provision is an unenforceable penalty, "the court must consider the whole contract, the situation of the parties, and the circumstances surrounding execution of the contract."
Defendants argue that the liquidated damages clause is a penalty because there was no attempt to calculate the amount of actual damages that might be sustained in the event of a breach. Defendants cite Wichita Clinic, P.A. v. Louis, for the proposition that if the amount of damages is the same for minor or major breaches or total or partial breaches, it is evident the parties did not attempt to calculate actual damages.
Retiree alleges that there are two clear and significant breaches warranting liquidated damages. One is Defendants' use of Retiree's confidential information to build their spreadsheet and utilize it to develop their business. Second, is Defendants' disclosure of Retiree's confidential information to Retiree's competitors, including software providers Finance Logix and Social Security Timing. Meyer then testified as to the reasonableness of the $250,000 figure in light of these two significant breaches.
Meyer testified that he had been negotiating with Finance Logix earlier in 2013 to license Retiree's IP and software, but the transaction never came to fruition. Anspach presented her spreadsheet in her blog, her publications and to influential people through RIIA. Anspach writes that Spreadsheet 2.0 is different from current planning projection modes, because of various technical aspects, including the ability to "[a]ccurately incorporate the taxation of Social Security and illustrate what percent of Social Security is subject to income taxes each year. (Finance Logix will be rolling out with this feature shortly — thanks to me.)"
Retiree was also negotiating with a regional broker dealer based in Philadelphia who wanted to use Retiree's Social Security software and training for its advisors. The deal did not come to fruition and the company licensed with Finance Logix instead. Meyer testified that deals involving an enterprise license—the purchase of Retiree's software for use with the company's advisors—have significant monetary value, giving as an example an enterprise license that Retiree issued in 2012 for $270,000. Meyer also testified as to deals involving advisor licenses—where each individual advisor would purchase a license for approximately $1000 per year— have significant monetary value and can be millions of dollars depending on the size of the organization. Meyer also testified as to opportunities for potential investors in Retiree, that were dependent on the novel and unique nature of its Big Model and software. The potential damages from these lost opportunities were significant and the damage to Retiree's goodwill is impossible to determine.
The Court finds that applying the liquidated damages clause to these two significant breaches is reasonable and the liquidated damages amount has a reasonable relationship to the actual injury caused by the breach. The Agreement provides that:
Thus, the scope of the liquidated damages clause can be limited to these two significant breaches, as asserted by Retiree, and the unenforceability of the liquidated damages clause to minor or partial breaches will not invalidate the remaining scope of the provision.
Defendants also argue that $250,000 is unreasonable because a different number was negotiated in the proposed employment agreement. However, the Agreement was to be superseded upon execution of the employment agreement,
The Court finds that the liquidated damages clause is enforceable as set forth herein. "The party challenging the provision bears the burden to prove the provision is an unenforceable penalty."
The Agreement provides that:
Defendants cite Weber v. Tillman,
The Court found in its Memorandum and Order granting a preliminary injunction that Retiree is suffering a harm that cannot be cured by monetary damages. In finding that Retiree has shown irreparable harm, this Court relied on its previous decision holding that: "Certainly, if the disclosure allows a competitor to cut corners in the research and development process . . ., the competitor will attain a competing product . . . much sooner, and it is this harm . . . that is irreparable."
Retiree also seeks to hold Anspach in contempt for violating the Court's preliminary injunction order, which ordered Defendants to discontinue use of their current Excel spreadsheet and remove all material on their website that was created using the spreadsheet, in particular their case studies page and The Free Report.
Civil contempt may be used to compensate for injuries from noncompliance with a court order.
Retiree claims that Anspach utilized the developed Excel model in her book, Control Your Retirement Destiny,
Meyer testified as to the use of the Excel model in Anspach's book. Meyer conducted a detailed demonstration, comparing the model to pages in the book. He used a current Spreadsheet from Anspach, focusing on the interface tab.
The burden therefore shifts to Anspach to show either that she did indeed comply with the order of the Court, or circumstances rendered it impossible for her to do so. Anspach's testimony lacked a denial of her use of the enjoined Excel model. Instead, she focused on errors in the book and the fact that she made her publisher aware of this Court's preliminary injunction order—issues irrelevant to whether or not she violated the Court's order. Anspach has failed to meet her burden of showing compliance with the preliminary injunction or circumstances rendering it impossible to comply.
The Court finds that Anspach's continued promotion, publication and sale of the book violates the Court's preliminary, and now permanent, injunction. Although the book was published prior to the Court entering its preliminary injunction, Retiree notified Anspach of the alleged violation after the Court entered its order. Anspach shall cease any further production, promotion or sales of the book in its current form utilizing the developed Excel model, as well as any reference to the book in her marketing materials, blogs, websites or otherwise. Retiree will be awarded its reasonable fees and expenses in pursuing the Motion for Contempt, as part of its fees and expenses set forth below.
Retiree claims entitlement to fees and costs pursuant to the Agreement which provides that "[t]he losing party agrees to pay to the prevailing party all costs, including attorneys' fees, incurred in enforcing this agreement."
In ruling on the reasonableness of the time and labor expended in the litigation of this case, the Court must begin by determining the amount of hours reasonably expended on the litigation. The burden is on the applicant to prove that the hours billed are reasonable "by submitting meticulous, contemporaneous time records that reveal, for each lawyer for whom fees are sought, all hours for which compensation is requested and how those hours were allotted to specific tasks."