A circuit court ruled that it would not lower EHR vendor Epic Systems' $140 million in compensatory damages that it is supposed to receive from Mumbai, India-based Tata Consultancy Services due to an ongoing trades secret case.
On July 14, a judge affirmed the compensatory damages of $140 million after a long battle between Epic Systems and Tata.
The court documentation obtained by Becker's reads, "The judgment of the District Court is affirmed, with costs, in accordance with the decision of this court entered on this date."
The case goes all the way back to 2014, when Epic filed a lawsuit against Tata in October 2014 alleging that Tata employees stole trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data from Epic.
In April 2016, a Wisconsin jury ruled in Epic's favor on seven claims, including misappropriation of trade secrets. The EHR company initially was awarded a $940 million verdict — $240 million in compensatory damages and $700 million in punitive damages, Crowell Trade Secrets Trends reported.
But a Wisconsin judge in 2017 reduced Epic's punitive damages award to $420 million in order to comply with state laws that put a cap on the amount of punitive damages permissible in such cases.
The EHR vendor then filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review its case in April 2021 because the amount to be paid in compensatory damages was once again lowered to $140 million in 2020.
Epic appealed the $140 million in compensatory damages decision to the Supreme Court, claiming the appeals court had "erroneously set a cap at a one-to-one ratio of punitive to compensatory damages," according to Crowell Trade Secrets Trends. Epic also claimed the appeals court's ruling is inconsistent and this type of award has been "permitted for hundreds of years," according to the Supreme Court case documents.
The 7th Circuit ruled that it wouldn't provide any further reductions to the $140 million in compensatory damages for Epic Systems.