Case Name: BANNER INDUSTRIES OF N.E., INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth L. WICKS, Harrington Industrial Plastics LLC, Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2016-01-25
Citations: 631 F. App'x 79
Docket Number: No. 14-4647-cv
Parties: BANNER INDUSTRIES OF N.E., INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth L. WICKS, Harrington Industrial Plastics LLC, Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, PETER W. HALL, and SUSAN L. CARNEY, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 631
Pages: 79–80

Head Matter:
BANNER INDUSTRIES OF N.E., INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth L. WICKS, Harrington Industrial Plastics LLC, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 14-4647-cv.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Jan. 25, 2016.
Seth H. Hochbaum, Regnante, Sterio & Osborne LLP, Wakefield, MA, for Appellant.
Andrew Marks, Littler Mendelson, P.C. (Stephen T. Melnick, on the brief), New York, NY, for Appellees.
Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, PETER W. HALL, and SUSAN L. CARNEY, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
SUMMARY ORDER
Banner Industries of N.E., Inc. appeals from the December 1, 2014 memorandum-decision and order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Mordue, J.) granting the motion for summary judgment made by Kenneth L. Wicks and Harrington Industrial Plastics, LLC. Banner Industries of N.E., Inc. v. Wicks, 71 F.Supp.3d 284 (N.D.N.Y.2014). We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.
We affirm for the reasons set forth in the district court's thorough and well-reasoned opinion. In order for a party to succeed on a claim for misappropriation of trade secrets, the party must show "(1) that it possessed a trade secret and (2) that the defendants used that trade secret in breach of an agreement, [a] confidential relationship or duty, or as a result of discovery by improper means." N. Atl. Instruments, Inc. v. Haber, 188 F.3d 38, 43-44 (2d Cir.1999) (citing Hudson Hotels Corp. v. Choice Hotels Int'l, 995 F.2d 1173, 1176 (2d Cir.1993) (abrogated on other grounds)). Banner argues that the record contains sufficient circumstantial evidence from which a fact finder can infer that Wicks misappropriated Banner's confidential information. The district court properly determined that Banner failed to raise a question of material fact on this issue. The fact that Wicks had information belonging to Banner does not give rise to an inference that Wicks misappropriated the information, because even assuming Wicks possessed Banner's trade secrets, nothing in the record supports an inference that Wicks used those trade secrets.
Further, the district court properly declined to enforce the' restrictive covenant as overbroad. As a general rule, "New York courts disfavor restrictive covenants in the employment context and will generally enforce them only to the extent they are reasonable and necessary to protect valid business interests." Lucente v. Int'l Bus. Mach. Corp., 310 F.3d 243, 254 (2d Cir.2002). (citing BDO Seidman v. Hirshberg, 93 N.Y.2d 382, 388, 690 N.Y.S.2d 854, 712 N.E.2d 1220 (1999)). New York "require[s] restrictive covenants to be reasonably limited in time, scope and geographical area, and to be grounded in a legitimate business purpose." Brown & Brown, Inc. v. Johnson, 25 N.Y.3d 364, 369, 12 N.Y.S.3d 606, 34 N.E.3d 357 (2015). We find no error with the district court's analysis.
We have considered the remainder of Banner's arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the order of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.