Eighth Circuit Holds That Broad Trade Secret Categories and Unconnected Circumstantial Evidence Doom Trade Secrets Claims

The decision offers a roadmap for plaintiffs on how to identify and describe their trade secrets with sufficient particularity and develop evidence tying alleged misconduct to specific secrets and theories of misappropriation, and it underscores the consequences of overbroad identification.

Background

Wilbur-Ellis Company specializes in agricultural products, services, and technologies. In August 2021, four employees — Josh Gompert, Aaron Petersen, James Kunzman, and Chad Mueller — resigned and began working for a competitor. At least 11 Wilbur-Ellis employees moved to the competitor around the same time.

Wilbur-Ellis sued within days, asserting trade secret misappropriation claims under the DTSA and the NTSA, along with common law business torts. In discovery, Wilbur-Ellis gave the employees notice of its intent to seek broad third-party discovery from the competitor. The employees objected. The magistrate judge instructed Wilbur-Ellis to seek discovery from the employees themselves, noting it was “backwards” to pursue third-party discovery before obtaining information from the defendants. Although Wilbur-Ellis indicated that it understood the magistrate judge’s instruction, Wilbur-Ellis filed a motion four months later asking the magistrate judge to overrule the employees’ objection to its notice of intent to seek third-party discovery from the competitor.

Before ruling on the motion, the magistrate judge ordered Wilbur-Ellis to “disclose, with specificity, the trade secrets it alleges were misappropriated.” Wilbur-Ellis produced a six-page document describing its alleged trade secrets in broad categories — “[d]ocuments and information regarding Wilbur-Ellis’s business and market strategy,” “[d]ocuments and information relating to Wilbur-Ellis’s customers,” and “nonpublic customer proposals, pricing and rebate data.” The magistrate judge found this disclosure “[did] not identif[y] any specific characteristics of the allegedly misappropriated trade secrets” and that it “apparently claim[ed] that everything [the employees] encountered in their positions at Wilbur-Ellis was a trade secret.” After reviewing the disclosure, the magistrate judge denied the motion to compel third-party discovery, reasoning that the disclosure offered only general categories and descriptions and that discovery from the competitor would amount to a “fishing expedition.”

The district court affirmed, noting a “growing consensus” of courts that require trade secret plaintiffs to identify their secrets with at least some specificity before discovery, while clarifying it “need not definitively decide” whether this is always required.

Wilbur-Ellis then filed a subsequent motion to compel discovery from the employees. The magistrate judge denied that motion as well, in part, because Wilbur-Ellis failed to adequately identify the trade secrets and did not diligently pursue discovery as it filed its motion nearly seven months after the defendants’ initial discovery responses.

The employees later moved for summary judgment. In response, Wilbur-Ellis asked the court to hold consideration of the motions in abeyance pending further discovery. The court denied Wilbur-Ellis’ request because it was untimely and sought to revisit discovery issues the court had already resolved.

Ultimately, the court granted the employees’ summary judgment motions as to the trade secret claims because Wilbur-Ellis did not provide sufficient admissible evidence to create a triable issue. The court emphasized that Wilbur-Ellis relied on broad terms, general descriptions, and repeated non-specific references to approximately 6,000 documents produced in discovery, rather than evidence tied to particular trade secrets and particular defendants.

Case Information

Wilbur-Ellis Company v. Gompert, __ F.4th __, No. 25-1577, No. 25-1682, 2026 WL 1957820 (8th Cir. July 7, 2026)

Plaintiff: Wilbur-Ellis Company

Defendants: Josh Gompert, Aaron Petersen, James Kunzman, Chad Mueller

Judges: Bobby E. Shepherd, writing for the panel (Bobby E. Shepherd, Ralph R. Erickson, and L. Steven Grasz)

Analysis and Outcome

The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment on the trade secret claims and the related state-law theories.

Overbroad Trade Secret Categories Do Not Satisfy the Plaintiff’s Identification Burden

The court applied the DTSA and NTSA requirements that a plaintiff must demonstrate both a protectable trade secret and misappropriation. It held that Wilbur-Ellis “paint[ed] with a broad brush” and never clearly identified the trade secrets at issue, how they were used or misused, or damages reasonably attributable to each defendant.

Wilbur-Ellis pointed generally to customer information, financial information, and strategy as protectable. The court acknowledged that such information can warrant protection in appropriate circumstances, but observed that “because it is not hard to imagine that most documents at Wilbur-Ellis would be related to its ‘customers, financial information, [or] strategy,’ Wilbur-Ellis fails to rebut the district court’s concern that Wilbur-Ellis ‘apparently claim[s] that everything [the employees] encountered in their positions at Wilbur-Ellis was a trade secret.’” In addition to failing to identify specific documents reflecting trade secrets, Wilbur-Ellis failed to allege which defendant allegedly misappropriated them or how the alleged misappropriation occurred. Ultimately, Wilbur-Ellis’ lack of specificity doomed its trade secret claims.

Security Measures Alone Do Not Establish Misappropriation

Wilbur-Ellis did identify a database called SeedWare as containing confidential information, emphasizing that it required a username and password and that access was limited. But the court held that even assuming SeedWare contained trade secrets, Wilbur-Ellis did not show or allege that any employee acquired SeedWare information by improper means or disclosed it without consent using improper means. Password protection and access controls may support the existence of a trade secret, but they do not establish the separate element of misappropriation.

Allegations of Coordinated Departure and Device Resets Were Insufficient

The court rejected Wilbur-Ellis’ reliance on generalized allegations about employee downloads, database access, coordinated departures, and device resets. These facts, standing alone, do not establish trade secret misappropriation. Without evidence connecting any of those actions to a specific protectable trade secret or a specific theory of improper acquisition, disclosure, or use, the circumstantial evidence could not create a triable issue.

Third-Party Discovery May Be Limited When Trade Secret Identification Is Overbroad

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the magistrate judge’s denial of third-party discovery from the competitor, agreeing that the proposed subpoena amounted to a fishing expedition given Wilbur-Ellis’ failure to narrow its trade secret allegations. The court noted that the district court did not adopt a categorical rule requiring the plaintiffs to identify trade secrets with reasonable particularity before all discovery but held that specificity was reasonable here given concerns about premature third-party discovery from a non-party competitor and the overbreadth of the plaintiff’s disclosure.

Why It Matters

This decision delivers several practical lessons for trade secret practitioners.

• Identify trade secrets concretely and early. Courts are increasingly requiring specificity before permitting broad discovery. A disclosure that claims everything an employee encountered — organized by vague category rather than specific documents, datasets, or business methods — invites judicial skepticism and may foreclose discovery from competitors entirely.

• Customer information is not a magic word. Alleging that “customer information” is protectable does not satisfy the plaintiff’s burden. The plaintiff must identify specific customer documents or data, explain why they qualify as trade secrets, describe what secrecy measures protected them, and show how each defendant improperly acquired, disclosed, or used them.

• Third-party competitor discovery may be curtailed when trade secret allegations are overbroad. Courts may deny discovery from a competitor where the plaintiff has not narrowed the universe of alleged secrets. The decision reinforces that a plaintiff seeking discovery from a third party — particularly a competitor — should expect scrutiny of whether the requested discovery is proportionate to the specificity of the trade secret allegations.

• Circumstantial evidence requires a causal link to a specific secret. Downloads, device resets, and coordinated departures are common in employee-mobility disputes. But the Eighth Circuit makes clear that this evidence must be connected to an identified trade secret and a supported theory of misappropriation. Courts will not infer misappropriation from suspicious timing alone.