On May 3, New York’s highest court issued a decision clarifying the state’s common law on the extent of damages recoverable in cases asserting claims of misappropriated trade secrets, unfair competition and unjust enrichment. The Court of Appeals split 4-3. A frothy dissenting opinion bristles with evocative echoes of classical judicial skirmishes of long ago. Though the holding is important enough on the merits for litigators to digest, there is also some “entertainment” value in seeing how the jurists marshal their arguments. The subject matter is not easy but it is quite relevant in today’s litigious, technological world.

The decision is E.J. Brooks Co. v. Cambridge Security Seals, 2018 N.Y. LEXIS 1080 (N.Y. Ct. App, May 3, 2018). The court was responding to questions of law certified to it by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The federal appellate court was wrestling with an appeal filed from a federal district court judgment totaling $3.9 million in favor of a plaintiff (E.J. Brooks Co.) that sued defendant (Cambridge) for the latter’s misappropriation of a trade secret, unfair competition and unjust enrichment.