Marsteller v. ECS Federal, Inc.

ECS Federal, Inc. (ECS) (defendant), a government contractor that performed tasks for the United States Postal Service (USPS), hired Jacqueline D. Marsteller (plaintiff) in November 2006. On her hiring date, Marsteller signed a proprietary information agreement, in which she agreed to keep ECS’s proprietary information confidential and that, upon leaving the employ of ECS, she would return to ECS all drawings, notes, memoranda, and other listed documents pertaining to ECS’s proprietary information. In November 2011, Marsteller, who had become a senior vice president and account executive for ECS, was notified that her employment was terminated, effective at the end of 2011. However, at Marsteller’s request, the parties agreed to move up the effective termination date to December 15, 2011. Later in December, Marsteller began working for Ausley Associates, Inc. (Ausley). On July 31, 2012, Ausley received International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification. Marsteller sued ECS in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, asserting claims for breach of contract and other causes of action. ECS counterclaimed for, among other things, trade-secret misappropriation under the Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act (VUTSA). ECS’s counterclaim alleged that in November 2011, after Marsteller learned of her termination, she transferred highly proprietary ECS information to an external storage device without authorization and outside of ECS-related work activities. ECS alleged that this information included management-system documents that ECS had used to obtain ISO certification that, once granted, increases an organization’s value by allowing the organization to seek contracting work requiring such certification. Marsteller moved to dismiss ECS’s VUTSA counterclaim.