Court Opinion

ID: 9912916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-26 15:04:31.962752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:22.853817
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule
23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28,
as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties
and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's
decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire
court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case.
A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25,
2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted
above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260
n.4 (2008).

                       COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

                                 APPEALS COURT

                                                  23-P-392

                                MARY GATTINERI

                                       vs.

                WILLIAMS-SONOMA STORES, INC., & others. 1

               MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

       The plaintiff, Mary Gattineri, appeals from a judgment of

 the Superior Court dismissing her complaint for trade secret

 misappropriation and related claims against the defendants,

 Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc. (Williams-Sonoma); Lifetime Brands,

 Inc. (Lifetime); Teresa Musgrove; and Warren Tuttle. 2              We agree

 with the motion judge that the applicable statutes of

 limitations bar her claims, and affirm.

 1 Lifetime Brands, Inc.; Teresa Musgrove; and Warren Tuttle.
 Tuttle joined in the briefs and oral arguments of his
 codefendants.

 2 The plaintiff brought ten claims against the defendants in
 different combinations: breach of contract, trade secret
 misappropriation, conversion of property, aiding and abetting
 misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, negligent
 misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, negligent infliction of
 emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional
 distress, and unfair and deceptive practices.
     In 2003, the plaintiff designed what she called "The

Perfect Brownie Pan," a pan with removable inserts that baked

precut brownies.   She was working in retail sales at Williams-

Sonoma at the time and showed Musgrove, Williams-Sonoma's

district manager, a prototype of the pan subject to a

nondisclosure agreement, 3 but was unsuccessful in developing the

prototype with Williams-Sonoma.   Thereafter, in 2009, the

plaintiff saw a television infomercial by Allstar Marketing

Group (Allstar) selling a product "virtually identical" to her

invention and marketed under the name "The Perfect Brownie Pan."

In 2010, Focus Products Group (Focus) obtained a patent for a

pan matching her invention.   Eleven years later, in 2021, the

plaintiff filed this action against the defendants.

     We review the allowance of a motion to dismiss under Mass.

R. Civ. P. 12 (b) (6), 365 Mass. 754 (1974), "de novo, accepting

the allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all

reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor."   Harrington v.

Costello, 467 Mass. 720, 724 (2014).   It is well settled that a

motion to dismiss is an "appropriate vehicle for raising [the]

defense" that "the action was commenced beyond the time

constraints of the statute of limitations."   Epstein v. Seigel,

3 The plaintiff alleged that Musgrove entered into the
nondisclosure agreement on behalf of Williams-Sonoma, but the
agreement does not indicate that Musgrove acted in a
representative capacity.

                                  2
396 Mass. 278, 279 (1985).   Under the discovery rule, the

statute of limitations is tolled "until a plaintiff knows, or

reasonably should have known, that it has been harmed or may

have been harmed by the defendant's conduct."   Taygeta Corp. v.

Varian Assocs., Inc., 436 Mass. 217, 229 (2002).

     In the present case, the plaintiff had actual knowledge of

her injury when she saw the infomercial for "The Perfect Brownie

Pan" in 2009.   "The knowledge required to trigger commencement

of the statute of limitations is not notice of every fact which

must eventually be proved in support of the claim, but rather

knowledge that an injury has occurred" (quotations and citation

omitted).    AA&D Masonry, LLC v. South St. Business Park, LLC, 93

Mass. App. Ct. 693, 699 (2018).   The plaintiff alleged that

after seeing the infomercial, she was "[c]oncerned that

confidential information relating to her invention had been

disclosed without her authorization, and that others were

wrongfully profiting from her idea" and had a "strongly held

belief that her rights had been violated."   As the motion judge

concluded:

     "Even if she did not know the mechanism of injury -- i.e.,
     exactly how her idea for the [']Perfect Brownie Pan['] got
     from Musgrove to Allstar -- she knew that she had been
     injured and knew of at least three potential defendants who
     had either violated their contract (Musgrove and, on

                                  3
     plaintiff's theory, Williams-Sonoma) or were being unjustly
     enriched by the misappropriation of her idea (Allstar)." 4

The plaintiff's knowledge of her injury was definite enough that

between 2009 and 2012 she consulted four lawyers in an attempt

to pursue her claims. 5   The statutes of limitations on her claims

thus began running in 2009 and expired long before 2021. 6

     Moreover, even apart from the plaintiff's knowledge of her

injury in 2009, the issuance of a patent on a pan matching her

invention in 2010 triggered the statutes of limitations on her

claims.   See Stark v. Advanced Magnetics, Inc., 50 Mass. App.

Ct. 226, 233 (2000) (issuance of patent was matter of public

record, served as notice to world of its existence, and put

plaintiff on notice of his injury).    The plaintiff argues on

4 The plaintiff stated that she showed her invention only to her
brother who manufactured the prototype, her attorney, and
Musgrove.

5 We further note that a reasonable person in the plaintiff's
position would have known her injury when she saw the
infomercial in 2009. See Howe v. Palmer, 80 Mass. App. Ct. 736,
743 (2011). We decline to apply the plaintiff's proposed
standard of a "single mother with no business experience" in
assessing knowledge, as the test for reasonableness is
objective. See Doe v. Creighton, 439 Mass. 281, 283 (2003) (to
invoke discovery rule, plaintiff must prove "both an actual lack
of causal knowledge and the objective reasonableness of that
lack of knowledge" [emphasis added]).

6 The applicable limitations periods are: three years (trade
secret misappropriation), G. L. c. 93, § 42E; three years
(torts), G. L. c. 260, § 2A; four years (unfair and deceptive
practices), G. L. c. 260, § 5A; and six years (breach of
contract), G. L. c. 260, § 2.

                                  4
appeal that whether the patented product was sufficiently

similar to her invention so as to put her on notice of her

claims is a question of fact that should not have been decided

on a motion to dismiss.   Passing on the question of whether the

plaintiff waived this issue by failing to raise it in her

oppositions to the defendants' motions to dismiss, 7 the plaintiff

admitted in her complaint that the patented product was "based

solely" on her invention. 8   The issuance of the patent thus put

her on notice of her claims.

     We also are unpersuaded by the plaintiff's argument that

the defendants' alleged fraudulent concealment of their

misappropriation of her invention tolled the statutes of

limitations on her claims.    "Under G. L. c. 260, § 12, the

7 The plaintiff did not raise this issue in her oppositions to
the defendants' motions to dismiss and appears to have raised it
for the first time in her motion for reconsideration. A new
legal theory raised for the first time in a motion for
reconsideration is waived. See AA&D Masonry, 93 Mass. App. Ct.
at 698. We note, however, that during oral argument on the
motions to dismiss the plaintiff's counsel stated that "the
infringing product . . . was not the exact same thing as the
[']Perfect Brownie Pan[']."

8 The plaintiff alleged that "Lifetime knew that the infringing
product was based solely on [the plaintiff's] invention and that
its subsidiary and/or affiliate had manufactured the infringing
product." In addition, in a letter attached to her complaint,
the plaintiff's counsel asserted that Focus "developed,
patented, and successfully commercialized [the plaintiff's]
invention" and Lifetime "wrongfully obtained a patent on the
invention -— which does not name [the plaintiff] as an
inventor."

                                  5
statute of limitations will be tolled if the wrongdoer either

concealed the existence of a cause of action through some

affirmative act done with intent to deceive or breached a

fiduciary duty of full disclosure" (quotations and citation

omitted).   Stark, 50 Mass. App. Ct. at 233.   The plaintiff did

not allege that any of the defendants owed her a fiduciary duty.

Furthermore, the plaintiff did not adequately plead any

affirmative act of concealment by the defendants.    She alleged

that Lifetime deceptively denied having acquired Focus, 9 but even

if Lifetime's denial was false, she alleged that she knew it was

false at the time.   Thus, as the motion judge determined, "there

could be no fraudulent concealment because there was no

detrimental reliance." 10   See id. at 234 (in case of fraud, "the

statute will not be tolled if the plaintiff also had the means

to acquire the facts on which his cause of action is based").

9 Lifetime's counsel stated that Lifetime did not acquire the
"entity" Focus, but acquired intellectual property from Focus,
including the patent at issue.

10As the alleged act of concealment took place in 2018, nothing
excuses the eight-year gap between the issuance of the patent
and 2018 in any case.

                                  6
       We conclude that the plaintiff's claims are time barred and

affirm the dismissal of her complaint.

                                      Judgment affirmed.

                                      By the Court (Green, C.J.,
                                        Blake & Henry, JJ. 11),

                                      Clerk

Entered:    December 26, 2023.

11   The panelists are listed in order of seniority.

                                  7