Flexmir Inc. v. Herman, 148/277.
| Decision Date | 15 January 1945 |
| Docket Number | 148/277. |
| Citation | 40 A.2d 799 |
| Parties | FLEXMIR, Inc., v. HERMAN et al. |
| Court | New Jersey Court of Chancery |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Suit by Flexmir, Inc., against Joseph Herman and others, for an injunction to restrain defendant from using, divulging, or attempting to use or divulge secret processes employed by complainant in its business and from using any machinery where such use would be a use of complainant's secret processes.
Temporary injunction issued against all defendants except Louis A. Levy.
Tepper & Tepper and Elias A. Kanter, all of Newark, for complainant.
Parnell & Krueger and John J. Clancy, of Newark, for defendants.
STEIN, Vice Chancellor.
Complainant's business is that of processing plastic materials of all kind under certain patents and new secret metalizing methods and processes, used in the manufacture and processing of flexible and unbreakable reflectors, switch plates, rear view mirros, and many other articles and accessories, all made out of plastic and other materials, and in processing sheets for the stamping out buttons and insignias.
The complainant seeks injunction against the defendants from using, divulging, or attempting to use or divulge secret processes employed by it in its business aforesaid, and from using any machinery where such use would be a use of complainant's secret processes.
Complainant claims that the secret processes employed by it are the result of long experience and of work done by one Max Blank who became the president of the corporation and assigned to it all of his secret processes; that it expended much effort and money to build up its business and now enjoys a high reputation in the plastic industry, and the metalizing of plastics.
The defendants are Joseph Herman, Leo DeGirade, John G. Seiler, Minnie Herman, sister of Joseph Herman, and Gertrude DeGirade, wife of Leo DeGirade, and one Louis A. Levy, a customer of complainant's.
The proof shows that Seiler, DeGirade and Herman were employed by the complainant company, and that Herman and Seiler in writing, and DeGirade verbally, agreed not to divulge, or use for the benefit of any other person or partnership, any of the ‘trade secrets, or secret processes of manufacture, secret formulae, methods of spraying, packing or shipping, used or employed by the Employer, in and about its processing and manufacturing business, and that may be communicated to the Employee by virtue of his employment hereunder’, and not to enter the employ, directly or indirectly, for ten years of any other person, partnership, or corporation, engaged in the business of processing or metalizing plastics, etc.
In violation of their agreement these defendants did enter the employ of a company known as Spray-Cote Corporation, and in which company they became stockholders.
The defendants insist that the complainant did not in the manufacture of its product employ secret processes, but the proof presently before me is convincing that the complainant did possess and use a secret process or processes. While these defendants now say that there is no such thing as a secret process that can be employed in the coating of metals and plastics, there is nevertheless attached to complainant's reply affidavits copies of contracts entered into by Herman and by DeGirade with the Spray-Cote Corporation after their employment with complainant was ended, which contracts are dated September 24, 1943, in which contracts...
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