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Computer Associates International3/14/1996
March 14, 1996.
Argued September 22, 1994
On Certified Question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
JUSTICE ENOCH delivered the opinion of the Court on Motion for Rehearing, in which Chief Justice Phillips, Justice Gonzalez, Justice Hecht, Justice Cornyn, Justice Spector, and Justice Baker join.
The motion for rehearing is overruled. Our opinion of June 8, 1995, is withdrawn and the following is substituted in its place.
This case comes to us on certified questions from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Computer Assocs. Int'l, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 22 F.3d 32 (2d Cir. 1994). We are asked to decide two issues: (1) whether the discovery rule exception to section 16.003(a) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code applies to claims for misappropriation of trade secrets; and if not, (2) whether the application to such claims of the two-year limitations period provided by section 16.003(a) contravenes the "open courts" provision of Article I, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution. We hold that the discovery rule exception does not apply to the claim for misappropriation of trade secrets and that application of section 16.003(a) does not violate the Texas Constitution.
I
Claude Arney, a developer of computer software, was employed by Computer Associates International, Inc., in its Dallas office from 1978 until January 1984. During his employment, Arney signed an employment agreement which prohibited him from retaining or divulging Computer Associates' trade secrets. In January 1984, Arney left Computer Associates to accept employment at Altai, Inc. In an exit interview, Arney represented that he retained no proprietary information of Computer Associates and would not divulge Computer Associates' trade secrets to any third party. However, when Arney left Computer Associates he took copies of the computer source code for two versions of ADAPTER. ADAPTER is an operating system compatibility component of CA-SCHEDULER, which is a job scheduling program for IBM mainframe computers. ADAPTER connects CA-SCHEDULER with the three different operating systems used on IBM mainframe computers and enables CASCHEDULER to run on any of the IBM operating systems. ADAPTER was also used with a group of Computer Associates' programs called the DYNAM line. However, ADAPTER is not a separate product and is not capable of operating as an independent product. Before Arney left Computer Associates, Altai developed ZEKE, a job scheduling program for IBM mainframe computers which was similar to CA-SCHEDULER. In early 1984, Arney copied approximately thirty percent of the ADAPTER source code to write OSCAR 3.4 for Altai. It is undisputed that no one at Altai (other than Arney) knew that Arney possessed the ADAPTER source code or that Arney had copied portions of the source code when he created OSCAR 3.4. OSCAR 3.4 is Altai's operating system compatibility component which was used in several of Altai's programs, including ZEKE. Like ADAPTER, OSCAR 3.4 is not a separate product and is not capable of operating as an independent product. From 1985 to August 1988, Altai used OSCAR 3.4 as a component of several of its computer programs that competed with several of Computer Associates' programs.
In July 1988, Computer Associates first discovered that Altai had copied and used the ADAPTER source code in several of its computer programs. In August 1988, Computer Associates sued Altai in federal district court for misappropriation of trade secrets and copyright infringement. Among other things, the federal district court determined that Computer Associates' action for misappropriation of trade secr
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