(Bloomberg) -- A $740 million jury verdict against Amrock Inc. was thrown out by a Texas appeals court that said tech firm HouseCanary Inc. failed to prove the big title insurer stole its trade secrets to build a competing real estate analysis tool.
Wednesday’s decision reverses a 2018 verdict by jurors who found that Amrock, an affiliate of Quicken Loans LLC formerly known as Title Source Inc., maliciously misappropriated elements of an analytics app the tech firm developed before Amrock broke off their relationship.
The appellate court said flaws in the definition of trade secrets theft given to the San Antonio jury undermined the verdict against Amrock, which like Quicken is a unit of Rock Holdings Inc. Amrock, based in Detroit, is the biggest independent provider of title insurance, valuations and settlement services, according to Rock’s website.
HouseCanary, based in San Francisco, can retry its claims, the appeals court said.
Amrock had counterclaimed that HouseCanary failed to deliver a working app that enables appraisers to file complete reports from the field. The court agreed with the jury that Amrock didn’t prove that claim, which can’t be retried.
Both sides are expected to appeal elements of the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court.
Read More: Amrock Ordered to Pay $706 Million in Trade Secrets Case
HouseCanary, founded in 2014, sells real estate analytics software that crunches more than 40 years of data into tools to define and forecast real estate values and market influences. As of the verdict, the firm counted among its investors former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s family office and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s PSP Growth/PSP Capital.
The jury’s award of $706 million in actual and punitive damages had grown to $740 million through added interest and attorneys’ fees.
The case is Title Source Inc. v HouseCanary Inc., 04-19-00044, Texas Fourth Court of Appeals (San Antonio).
(Updates with details and background starting in second paragraph)
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