In California, although the prevailing rule is that each party in litigation must cover their own fees and costs, a litigant can be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees and costs if expressly permitted in a contract. Proprietary information agreements often include an award of attorney’s fees and costs if a company prevails in seeking injunctive relief for misappropriation of its trade secrets by a current or former employee. However, there is an ambiguity in whether a plaintiff actually prevails on a claim for trade secret misappropriation, entitling it to injunctive relief and therefore attorney’s fees, even without a showing of damages. In Applied Medical Distribution Corp. v. Jarrells, 100 Cal. App. 5th 556 (2024), the California Court of Appeals ended this uncertainty and affirmed that monetary damages are not an element of a claim for trade secret misappropriation, and a plaintiff may be entitled to attorney’s fees even where the jury found the plaintiff was not damaged by the misappropriation.Continue Reading Attorney’s Fees May Be Recoverable in Trade Secret Cases, Even Without Damages