Business Court Dismisses Trade Secrets Suit for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction Over Out-of-State Defendant with Substantial Texas Presence
Read the Court's Opinion (PDF)
Judge Melissa Davis Andrews
In GoSecure v. CrowdStrike, Division 3 granted CrowdStrike's special appearance and dismissed claims arising from alleged 2011-2012 California trade secret misappropriation, holding that neither general jurisdiction (despite CrowdStrike's large Texas office and sales) nor specific jurisdiction (because claims did not "arise out of or relate to" Texas contacts occurring years after the operative facts) existed over the Delaware corporation principally based in California. The decision clarifies that substantial in-state business operations alone cannot support general jurisdiction absent principal place of business, and that specific jurisdiction requires a substantial connection between forum contacts and the operative facts underlying the claims.
Court Staff Summary
This intellectual-property dispute between two companies based in California arises out of the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets that initially occurred in California some fifteen years ago. Defendant CrowdStrike, Inc. (CrowdStrike) filed a special appearance, which the Court grants. The Court holds that it lacks general jurisdiction over CrowdStrike because, despite having a large office and sales in Texas, Crowdstrike does not have its principal place of business in Texas and is not “essentially at home” here under the exceptional-case doctrine. The Court holds that it lacks specific jurisdiction over CrowdStrike because plaintiff’s claims do not “arise out of or relate to” CrowdStrike’s Texas contacts, which occurred years after the initial alleged misappropriation and are peripheral to, rather than substantially connected to, the operative facts of the case.
Background: A California Dispute Relocated to Texas
GoSecure, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in California, sued CrowdStrike, Inc., another Delaware corporation also based in California, alleging misappropriation of endpoint detection and response technology trade secrets. According to GoSecure's allegations, CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch served on GoSecure's Board of Directors from September 2011 through May 2012, during which time he and engineer Jeremy Gould—whom Alperovitch recruited to GoSecure—allegedly accessed confidential information and used it to develop CrowdStrike's Falcon Platform. GoSecure claims it discovered the misappropriation only in July 2024 following CrowdStrike's widely publicized global outage, when a technical analysis revealed methods allegedly derived from GoSecure's trade secrets.
GoSecure initially filed suit in California state court in November 2024, alleging that CrowdStrike "misappropriated its trade secrets in San Mateo County, California" and that the California court had jurisdiction because CrowdStrike "was founded in California, long maintained its principal place of business in California, and misappropriated GoSecure's trade secrets in California." After CrowdStrike filed a demurrer and GoSecure amended its complaint, GoSecure voluntarily dismissed the California action in August 2025 and immediately refiled in the Texas Business Court, asserting claims under TUTSA, common law misappropriation, unfair competition, conversion, and unjust enrichment.
The Jurisdictional Challenge
CrowdStrike filed an amended special appearance challenging personal jurisdiction. GoSecure argued the Business Court had jurisdiction because CrowdStrike "does business in Texas and is headquartered in Texas," has "purposely availed itself of doing business in the state of Texas," and "this suit arises out of or relates to CrowdStrike's contacts in the state." The jurisdictional dispute thus presented two questions: whether the Court had general jurisdiction over CrowdStrike based on its substantial Texas operations, and whether it had specific jurisdiction because the claims related to those operations.
The Court's Analysis: Contacts Alone Do Not Establish Jurisdiction
Judge Andrews began with a policy observation that frames the entire opinion:
Texas is lauded as an attractive place to do business for many reasons—favorable tax policies, low-operating costs, a skilled and diverse workforce, well-developed infrastructure and access to global markets, a pro-growth regulatory environment, and of course, the large customer base offered by its still growing population of over 30 million people.But the Court emphasized that while such business activities "may subject a company to jurisdiction in Texas for lawsuits that arise out of or relate to those activities," they "will not, without more, subject a company to jurisdiction in Texas for all lawsuits of any kind."
On general jurisdiction, the Court held that despite CrowdStrike "having a large office and sales in Texas," it lacks general jurisdiction because CrowdStrike "does not have its principal place of business in Texas and is not 'essentially at home' here under the exceptional-case doctrine." The Court noted that "if the company chooses to incorporate and have its principal place of business in another forum, Texas's jurisdiction over the company is limited."
On specific jurisdiction, the Court held that GoSecure's claims do not "arise out of or relate to" CrowdStrike's Texas contacts. The Court found that CrowdStrike's Texas contacts—opening an office and generating sales in Texas—"occurred years after the initial alleged misappropriation and are peripheral to, rather than substantially connected to, the operative facts of the case." The Court emphasized the mismatch between forum and dispute:
Because this is a dispute between California-based entities over events that occurred largely in California, it does not belong in Texas court, and that is not changed by the fact that CrowdStrike opened an office in Texas years after the trade secrets were allegedly stolen and now has both a sizeable Texas workforce and considerable sales in Texas.
Implications for Texas Commercial Practice
This decision provides critical guidance on the limits of personal jurisdiction in the Business Court, particularly for disputes involving national companies with significant Texas operations. The opinion makes clear that substantial Texas business presence—even "large offices," "many employees," or "a lot of business with Texas residents"—cannot support general jurisdiction for a company incorporated and principally based elsewhere. More significantly for specific jurisdiction analysis, the Court requires a substantial temporal and causal connection between the forum contacts and the operative facts: post-misappropriation sales of products allegedly incorporating stolen trade secrets, without more, do not suffice.
The Court's policy framing is equally significant. Judge Andrews explicitly tied jurisdictional restraint to Texas economic interests, warning that "[j]udicial overreach in this scenario would discourage doing business in Texas, reducing job opportunities and consumer choice for Texans, and place the burden on Texas courts to adjudicate disputes over out-of-state events involving out-of-state parties." This business-friendly approach to jurisdiction may influence how the Business Court approaches similar challenges, particularly in cases where plaintiffs attempt to leverage a defendant's general market presence to establish jurisdiction over unrelated historical disputes. For practitioners, the decision underscores the importance of establishing not merely that a defendant does business in Texas, but that the specific claims asserted have a substantial connection to those Texas activities.