Articles Posted in Contract/Corporate

Two cases, one State and one Federal, declined to prevent a competitor from using what was alleged to be another’s secret information.

In Art and Cook, Inc. v. Haber, the Eastern District court found that the secrets alleged to have been infringed or disclosed were in fact not secrets, legally speaking. The plaintiff claimed that Haber, an ex-salesman of plaintiff’s cookware and kitchenware, had been caught emailing himself a list of buyers and separately, marketing, sales and customer list information. After Haber’s termination, he began to compete against plaintiff.

In declining to find that these lists were protectable trade secrets, the court addressed each of these two categories of information that Haber had sent himself. The court discussed the reason and manner of how a customer list could be deemed a trade secret. Specifically, a customer list created through significant effort and which contains unique or valuable information generated by a business, and maintained by the business as a secret, may be enforced as a secret. But, a “contact list [that] contains little more than publicly available information, even if it takes considerable effort to compile, it is not accorded protection… .” In this case, the court determined that the customer list was a compilation of names that the plaintiff hoped to solicit but which did not reflect unique information. That the list took substantial time to create would not convert a list consisting of largely public information into a secret. Finally, the court noted that where “the contacts on Plaintiff’s customer lists are generally known within Plaintiff’s industry is fatal [to a claim of infringement]. Simply put, knowledge that is generally known within an industry cannot be said to constitute the trade secret of one industry participant.”

A guarantor was sued for the failure of the obligor/tenant to pay rent. The tenant had defaulted on a commercial lease and under the lease’s acceleration clause owed the landlord more than $1,740,000. When the guarantor was sued, he claimed that the landlord’s re-letting of the space precluded full recovery under the acceleration provision and that his liability was limited to what the tenant owed.

The First Department recently rejected that argument. While not disputing that a tenant might not be liable for the period of time for which the premises had been rented to a new tenant, the guarantor did not have the benefit of that provision to offset the amounts due. The court stated that in this setting, a guarantor’s “liability can be greater than that of the obligor tenant, as the lease and guaranties were separate undertakings, and the latter are enforceable without qualification or reservation.”

Essentially, the guaranty agreement, while guaranteeing the underlying lease, was a separate agreement governed by its own set of rules which were not the same as the underlying lease. We saw a similar outcome in a case about a dispute over a brokerage agreement that resulted in a settlement agreement. The settlement agreement was a document distinct from the brokerage agreement, with its own terms and conditions, and enforceable as such. We wrote about it here.

For any contract to be enforced, it must address the transaction’s core elements. It must identify the parties, the property sufficiently for it to be identified, and the price. And it must be signed. What if the contract does not detail how or when the balance is to be paid or the closing held?

The Second Department enforced a contract missing those two terms, finding that where the form of payment is missing it is presumed to be money and paid in exchange for the delivery of the deed. The missing closing date was not fatal to the deal because “the law will presume that the closing will take place within a reasonable time.”

One wonders if litigation took place over that vague term.

Plaintiffs own a number of commercial properties in Brooklyn. In connection with that ownership, plaintiffs retained defendant broker to arrange for insurance coverage for the buildings.

At the time of issuance, in 2002, the policies did not cover flood-related damage. In 2007, defendant offered plaintiffs flood coverage. Plaintiffs agreed and believed that the buildings were covered for flood damage. However, plaintiffs were never informed that the policies excluded coverage for properties within specified flood zones. The buildings at issue were in flood zones so that they were in fact not covered for flood. The policies were renewed annually.

In 2011, before Hurricane Sandy hit the New York area, plaintiffs requested that defendant affirm to them in writing that the buildings were covered for flood damage. Defendant did so, writing that the buildings had $1 million of flood coverage. Only after Hurricane Sandy damaged plaintiffs’ buildings did plaintiffs learn that the buildings had no flood coverage. Plaintiffs sued for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and misrepresentation.

While some businesses believe that all of their business information can be deemed a “trade secret,” the Second Department recently reaffirmed that not to be the case.

In an action by a lighting company seeking to prevent an ex-employee from working for a competitor, the company’s claim that the employee was misappropriating trade secrets was dismissed. In discussing that claim, the Court noted that for a secret to be such, it must be maintained as a secret. This means that where information is “readily ascertainable outside the employer’s business as prospective users or consumers of the employer’s services of products, trade secret protection will not attach and courts will not enjoin the employee from soliciting his employer’s customers.” Because the lighting company’s alleged secrets were “customer lists, prices, and profit margins,” which were described as “distinctive” by the company, the company’s failure to maintain that information as secret within the company defeated its claim.

This is not to say that customer lists, for example, cannot be confidential and enforced as a secret. However, to accomplish that designation, there must be a demonstration of how the information is maintained. Therefore, where a business seeks to keep its information secret, it must take specific steps to treat that information as secret, including by documenting how and for whom the information is available.

Some time ago, as part of a discussion about equitable rescission based on fraud, we noted that recovery based on a fraud claim where damages were not specifically alleged and sufficiently supported was the subject of a split between the First and Second Departments.  The Second Department had held that even if just nominal damages are generally alleged, the complaint would survive dismissal. The First Department disagreed and held that a claim of specific damages was required. Recently, the Court of Appeals addressed the split and sided with the First Department.

In Connaughton v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Connaughton, a chef hired by Chipotle, alleged that he was fraudulently induced into selling his business idea to Chipotle. Specifically, Connaughton claimed that he was hired by Chipotle to develop an idea for a ramen noodle restaurant chain. He was promised a salary plus future equity. After investing substantial efforts over 18 months in publicly building the concept, Connaughton learned that Chipotle had a relationship with another chef who previously worked on the same concept and with whom Chipotle had signed a non-disclosure agreement. The relationship with the other chef had terminated before Connaughton joined Chipotle. It seemed that all of management except Connaughton were aware of this and that once the new chain opened, that chef would sue Connaughton and Chipotle. Chipotle ignored Connaughton’s concerns and demanded that he continue his work. When he refused he was fired.

Connaughton’s theory for recovery, as succinctly explained by the Court of Appeals, is critical to the case’s outcome in the First Department and in the Court of Appeals. Connaughton alleged that:

Leisure Time Travel, Inc., specializes in “producing holiday tours and vacations that comport with Jewish law and tradition.” Villa Roma claims to be the last resort in the Catskills region.

In 2001, the parties entered into a contract whereby Villa Roma would be rented for five Passover holidays, from 2002 through 2006. In 2005, the parties extended the contract for five years, through 2011.

The agreement called for Leisure Time to take over the hotel approximately one week before Passover. The day before Passover in 2006, a fire destroyed the hotel. The hotel refused to return Leisure Time’s $220,000 down payment. When Villa Roma reopened in late 2008, Leisure Time contacted Villa Roma to book the hotel for the 2009-2011 Passover holidays. Villa Roma refused to allow Leisure Time to book the hotel claiming that the fire rendered the parties’ contract impossible to perform thus terminating it. Leisure Time sued claiming that it was entitled to the return of its deposit paid in 2006 and to use the hotel under the terms of the parties’ agreement.

A buyer of real property that sued the seller before the parties’ closing date seeking to cancel the contract, but without a valid reason, was deemed to have breached that contract.

The buyer entered into a contract to buy two parcels of land in Staten Island. The contract was to close 30 days after the seller obtained certain regulatory approvals, but not later than 18 months from the contract date. If the approvals could not be obtained either party could terminate the contract or seek to renegotiate the purchase price, without obligation to close.

Because the approvals were delayed, the seller opted to terminate the contract and return the downpayment unless the buyer agreed to modify the contract. The contract was modified to extend the deadline to close, increase the price, and have the buyer reimburse the seller for certain costs incurred in doing the work that would release the regulatory approvals. The parties also agreed that the buyer would not sue the seller if the approvals could not be timely delivered. Believing that the approvals were forthcoming, the parties extended the closing deadline. Before that newly extended closing deadline, the buyer sued the seller seeking to cancel, or rescind, the contract. The seller counterclaimed claiming that the buyer’s lawsuit, by which it announced that it would not close and sought to cancel the contract, was itself a default entitling the seller to keep the buyer’s substantial downpayment. After the buyer’s lawsuit for rescission was dismissed, the seller pursued its counterclaim for the downpayment.