Defense avoids $21M demand after client accused of stealing intellectual property

Summary

• Defense secured a complete victory after defeating Sun Solar‘s claims seeking $12 million at trial following a $21 million pretrial demand.
• Jury rejected allegations involving trade secret misappropriation, breach of NDA, duty of loyalty, computer tampering and unjust enrichment.
• OakStar Bank and former employee prevailed on abuse of process counterclaims, receiving awards of $500,000 and $300,000, respectively.
• Greene County jury sided with defendants after four years of litigation involving claims under the Missouri Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

The defense in a lawsuit surrounding intellectual property claims secured a win, saving the represented employee and company from a $21 million demand by plaintiff’s counsel.

Plaintiff Sun Solar, a solar panel installation company, sued BrightOaks, OakStar Bank and a former employee who now works for OakStar alleging that the bank and the employee conspired to misappropriate trade secrets and finance and leasing business and program.

An attorney for the plaintiff did not respond to a request for comment.

“Related thereto, plaintiff asserted a variety of legal theories including alleged breach of Stipanovich’s nondisclosure agreement, alleged breach of an employee’s duty of loyalty, computer tampering, malicious trespass and unjust enrichment,” according to Randy Scheer of Baty Otto Scheer in Springfield who represented the bank. “OakStar Bank and Stipanovich maintained plaintiff’s claims were meritless (which included that plaintiff could not establish the existence of any purported trade secret or related finance and leasing business or program that was allegedly misappropriated).”

Scheer said the defense asserted counterclaims for abuse of process alleging Sun Solar brought the action for an improper purpose to pressure OakStar Bank to release Sun Solar from ongoing obligations relating to financing agreements with OakStar under which Sun Solar purposefully sought and obtained financing from OakStar Bank to finance millions of dollars’ worth of solar projects it sold to customers.

Throughout the case, Sun Solar claimed it became aware of the alleged misconduct in 2017 when the employee left the company and began working at OakStar. But, Scheer said, Sun Solar remained silent about this and continued using OakStar’s services for almost five years.

Sun Solar’s CEO secretly recorded conversations with OakStar employees, including the former employee, Scheer said. But these recordings never caught anything accusatory or that hinted at wrongdoing and Sun Solar declined to play the recordings for the jury.

“I think it underscored the meritless nature of their claims where they had used our products for a period of almost five years, took advantage of them, and then only after they were finished using us and found another bank did they try to create these claims,” Scheer said. “That gave rise to our abuse of process claim, because the real motive for Sun Solar filing this lawsuit was to try to get out from under unfavorable, what they considered to be unfavorable, terms under those agreements, where they had ongoing obligations to secure and guarantee the lease payments under the original sale lease back agreement.”

Scheer added that after prior summary judgment rulings and directed verdicts during trial which included directed verdicts on plaintiff’s claims of malicious trespass, alleged misappropriation of trade secrets under the Missouri Uniform Trade Secrets Act and computer tampering, Sun Solar submitted its remaining claims for alleged breach of the former employee’s NDA, alleged breach of an employee’s duty of loyalty, alleged conspiracy to breach an employee’s duty of loyalty and unjust enrichment.

Prior to trial, Sun Solar demanded $21 million in damages. At trial they sought $12 million.
After four years of litigation, the case went before a jury which sided with the defense.

The jury also found in favor of OakStar Bank and the employee on abuse of process counterclaims awarding damages for OakStar Bank in the amount of $500,000 and $300,000 for the employee.

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Amount of verdict, judgment or settlement: $0

Type of action: Intellectual property

Breakdown: Defense verdict on Plaintiff’s claims seeking $12 million in alleged damages at trial. $500,000 awarded to Defendant OakStar Bank on its abuse of process claim against Plaintiff Sun Solar, LLC, and $300,000 awarded to Defendant Stipanovich on his abuse of process claim against Plaintiff Sun Solar, LLC,

Venue: Greene County Circuit Court

Case Number/Date: 2231-CC00393/06/09/2026

Judge: Joshua Christensen

Plaintiffs’ Experts: Plaintiff’s computer tampering expert and damages experts were excluded for failure to meet the requirements of Section 490.065 RSMo.

Defendants’ Experts: Non-retained experts in banking and finance

Injuries: Business, commercial, economic

Last Pretrial Demand: $21 Million

Last Pretrial Offer: $0

Caption: Sun Solar, LLC v. OakStar Bank, BrightOak, LLC, and Adam Stipanovich

Plaintiffs’ Attorneys: Justin Perryman of Perryman Law in St. Charles; Steven E. Marsh of  Hulston, Jones & Marsh in Springfield; John M. Reeves of Reeves Law in St. Louis.

Defendants’ Attorneys: Randy Scheer of Baty Otto Scheer in Springfield; Brian D. Malkmus of Malkmus Law Firm in Springfield.