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Entrepreneur presented Developer with a proposed development using a spring baseball training facility as an anchor. The negotiations between Entrepreneur and Developer ultimately failed. Later, Developer built the development, without the Entrepreneur. The Entrepreneur sued for misappropriation of an idea.
The cause of action for misappropriation of an idea, imported from New York, requires that the idea have "genuine novelty and invention."
The appellate court ruled that the idea of using a spring baseball training facility as an anchor for a development was not so novel. The court went further, saying that it is difficult to see how the general idea for a planned development could ever satisfy the novelty requirement for misappropriation of an idea.
Moral: Break out those confidentiality agreements. Alevizos v. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 1999 WL 89043 (Fla. 4DCA) (opinion subject to revision). |
