1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Steinberg

In 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Steinberg (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 568, plaintiff there was a seller of replacement contact lenses headquartered in Utah. Its in-house attorney, Conder, left in 2001 after signing an agreement not to disclose any confidences or to join with any competitor for two years. Less than a year later, Conder met with Steinberg, a competitor of plaintiff's, and other optometrists with the goal of supporting legislative or legal action adverse to plaintiff's interests. At the meeting, Conder "spoke about information he had gained while representing plaintiff, which could be used against it." (Id. at p. 574.) Plaintiff brought an action against Steinberg for, among other things, "'inducing breach of fiduciary duty.'" (Id. at p. 588.) The Court of Appeal questioned whether such a cause of action existed, and analyzed the claim as one for conspiracy to breach fiduciary duty. (Ibid.) The court concluded that Steinberg's lack of knowledge about Conder's duties to plaintiff precluded this claim, and gave the following alternate ground for believing "there was no probability of plaintiff's prevailing" on it: "The fiduciary duties plaintiff alleged Steinberg had conspired to breach were duties that he did not owe to plaintiff. The allegedly violated duties were Conder's. They arose . . . from Conder's status as plaintiff's attorney. . . . Steinberg never occupied such a position. . . . Given this absence of any fiduciary duty owed plaintiff by Steinberg, and that the object of the alleged conspiracy was a breach of Conder's fiduciary duty, Steinberg could not as a matter of law have been liable for conspiracy to breach that duty." (Id. at p. 590.)