''TNA Entertainment, LLC. v. Wittenstein and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.'' 12-0746-III was a lawsuit filed on May 23, 2012 in

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

in the

Chancery Court The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of eq ...

by TNA Entertainment, LLC., against former employee Brian Wittenstein and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

WWE). WWE and TNA were the two largest national professional wrestling promotions in the United States. The suit alleged that Wittenstein violated a non-disclosure agreement and shared confidential information with WWE which represented a comparative advantage in negotiating with wrestling talent under contract with TNA. The lawsuit was formally withdrawn without prejudice, by the plaintiff, TNA, on January 15, 2013 under a "Notice of Voluntary Nonsuit" which offers no ruling on the merits of the suit and allows TNA to potentially refile at a later date.

Background

Brian Wittenstein signed a severance agreement with TNA, his former employer, on August 3, 2011 which included a non-disclosure agreement preventing him from disclosing certain confidential TNA information (including information regarding talent contracts). He was subsequently hired by WWE after which, TNA asserted that Wittenstein violated the agreement by downloading confidential TNA trade secrets and providing that information to WWE. WWE employees expressed concern about Wittenstein's tendency to state openly what he knew about TNA and Wittenstein was fired before completing his probationary period. Although WWE fired Wittenstein and alerted TNA officials as to the disclosure of the information, TNA claimed that WWE had access to the information for three weeks prior to disclosure and in this time, WWE used secret contract information and attempted to poach their talent in violation of Tennessee's

Uniform Trade Secrets Act The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), published by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) in 1979 and amended in 1985, is a model law designed for adoption by U.S. state, U.S. states. It was developed to resolve inconsistencies in the treatment of Trade ...

. The information was alleged to include data regarding wrestler compensation, which was used to recruit contracted TNA talent to work for WWE. One prominent wrestler named in the suit was

Ric Flair Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), known professionally as Ric Flair, is an American retired professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Flair's career spanned 50 years. He is ...

, whom TNA claims asked for his release from the company in order to sign with WWE following Wittenstein's disclosure of information to WWE. In TNA's suit, they stated:

Case

At the start of the case, the judge issued a temporary injunction against WWE requiring them to hand over any TNA classified documents they held, which WWE complied with and provided evidence of their servers that they had removed all confidential TNA information from their internal systems. The court also issued a

permanent injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable remed ...

against Wittenstein, requiring him to return all information he had on TNA and prohibited him from revealing the information to any third parties or from breaching any contracts he had with TNA. During the case, WWE ordered its employees not to have any professional or social contact with anybody related to TNA. They also held off signing El Generico because he had wrestled for TNA. TNA requested an injunction to prohibit WWE from signing any former TNA wrestlers but the judge denied this on the grounds of WWE stated they had no intention to sign Ric Flair. In January 2013, TNA announced they were dropping the lawsuit, with both sides covering their own legal fees and TNA covering the court costs.

References

{{Total Nonstop Action Wrestling United States class action case law Total Nonstop Action Wrestling WWE controversies

Background

Case

See also

References