Fred’s Stores of Mississippi, Inc. v. M & H Drugs, Inc.
Mississippi Supreme Court
725 So. 2d 902 (1998)

- Written by Kelli Lanski, JD
Facts
M&H Drugs, Inc. (M&H) (plaintiff) was the parent company of Super D, a pharmacy store. Super D employed Erik Broome as its manager and pharmacist. Broome’s duties included maintaining a master customer list with customers’ names, customers’ contact information, number of prescriptions each customer filled in one year, and dollar amount each customer spent on prescriptions at Super D in one year. Broome left Super D to manage a pharmacy for competitor Fred’s Stores of Mississippi, Inc. (Fred’s) (defendant). Broome took Super D’s customer list with him and gave it to his supervisor at Fred’s, who subsequently used it to send letters to nearly 1,000 of Super D’s customers. M&H sued Fred’s for misappropriation of trade secrets, asserting that the list had independent economic value because marketing companies would pay for customer contact information and that certain information, including prescription numbers and dollar amounts, could not be known to Fred’s by any proper means. The trial court found for M&H and awarded it compensatory and punitive damages. Fred’s appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Pittman, J.)
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