Kansas Supreme Court - 99536 – Wolfe Electric, Inc. v. Duckworth

ANALYSIS
Issue 1: The trial court erred in important jury instructions.
Defendants allege several problems with Jury Instruction 3, commonly known as
the parties' contentions instruction (see PIK Civ. 4th 106.01). They both allege Instruction
3 improperly allowed them to be held liable under KUTSA for misappropriating something
less than a trade secret. Duckworth next alleges that Instruction 3 was also partly based
upon an erroneous interpretation of his employment contract that, contrary to the contract's
plain language, improperly allowed him to be held liable for its breach for simply
competing against Wolfe Electric. Finally, Global alleges that Instruction 3 was further
contrary to the plain language of Duckworth's employment contract, which then
improperly allowed Global to be held liable for tortious interference for simply inducing
Duckworth to solicit business from Wolfe Electric's prospective customers or from its
vendors or suppliers.
Defendants further allege error in certain provisions of Instructions 5 and 8 because
they were not supported by the evidence.
Standard of Review
Defendants objected at the trial court to giving these instructions to the jury. As a
result, our standard of review for all four arguments regarding Instructions 3, 5, and 8 is the
same:
"It is the duty of the trial court to properly instruct the jury upon a party's theory of
the case. Error regarding jury instructions will not demand reversal unless it results in
prejudice to the appealing party. Instructions in any particular action are to be considered
12