Franek Olstowski v. Petroleum Analyzer Company, L.P.

A 2007 state-court judgment confirmed an arbitration award declaring Petitioner Olstowski the owner of trade-secret technology for an excimer lamp using krypton-chloride specifically to measure sulfur using ultraviolet fluorescence, and Respondent Petroleum Analyzer Company, L.P. (PAC) was permanently enjoined from using the trade secret. In 2010, the state appellate court affirmed the judgment after PAC appealed. Olstowski sought relief in the same state court after learning PAC had been selling a device containing the trade secret. In 2011, the state court entered an order clarifying that Olstowski’s trade secret was any “technology using an excimer light source that uses Krypton-Chloride specifically to measure sulfur using ultraviolet fluorescence.” Because of that order, PAC stopped selling the devices. Out of a company’s bankruptcy case in 2012, Olstowski filed an adversary proceeding against PAC for disgorgement of its profits from the sold devices. After a bench trial in 2018, the federal district court found PAC not liable, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Because PAC admitted that its devices used the trade secret, as defined by the statecourt orders, neither the district court nor the Fifth Circuit gave full and faith and credit to the state-court confirmation judgment and clarification order. The question presented is: 1. Whether state-court judgments confirming arbitration awards, including state-court orders clarifying such judgments, are “judicial proceedings” entitled to “full faith and credit in every court within the United States,” pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1738?