COLUMBIA TECHNOLOGY CORP v. John Yoo et al., Defendants–Respondents. (2026)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Melissa A. Crane, J.), entered October 15, 2024, against defendants EJR Search Partners, Eric Ross, and Jack Roth (collectively, the EJR defendants) in plaintiff's favor in the sums of $12,951.37 and $48,614.50, and bringing up for review an order (denominated a decision), same court and Justice, entered on or about September 14, 2023, to the extent it found that the EJR defendants were liable for misappropriation of trade secrets, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff Columbia Technology Corporation (CTC) is an information technology recruiting and staffing firm that recruited for financial services firms, earning revenue through commissions when it successfully placed a candidate with a client.  Defendant John Yoo (a nonparty to this appeal) began working at CTC in January 2010, and worked there for eight months until his termination in September 2020.

Plaintiff alleges that while Yoo worked for it as a recruiter, he provided names of plaintiff's candidates to defendants Eric Ross and Jack Roth, principals of EJR, and that EJR would then place candidates with its own clients.  According to plaintiff, Yoo misappropriated candidates' names from its candidate database, which constituted confidential information and trade secrets.  For placing nonparty Christopher Smith, EJR received a commission of $45,787.  Further, plaintiff alleges that Yoo, relying on one of plaintiff's contacts at Nomura named Kara Morrisey, placed nonparty Luis Reyes at Nomura after he was terminated from CTC and split the $22,000 fee for that placement with EJR.

We decline to disturb Supreme Court's finding that defendants misappropriated trade secrets from plaintiff when it used Smith's candidate information to place him, as “it cannot be said that the court's determination could not have been reached under any fair interpretation of the evidence” (Yoba v Yoba, 183 AD2d 418, 418 [1st Dept 1992];  see Nightingale Rest. Corp. v Shak Food Corp., 155 AD2d 297, 297 [1st Dept 1989], lv denied 76 NY2d 702 [1990] ).  The EJR defendants do not dispute that plaintiff's database of candidates constituted a trade secret, nor do they dispute that it was improper for Yoo to send them Smith's resume while Yoo was still working for plaintiff (see E.J. Brooks Co. v Cambridge Sec. Seals, 31 NY3d 441, 452 [2018] ).  Rather, the EJR defendants maintain that they had independent knowledge of Smith and his availability as a candidate, and therefore, that they did not use trade secrets to place him.  However, the trade secret was not Smith's existence and availability;  rather, it was the up-to-date resume that Yoo gleaned from plaintiff's database and sent to the EJR defendants.  Even assuming that defendants had Smith's resume from early 2005, as they assert, that resume would not include Smith's post-February 7, 2005 experience, which was considerable.

Nor was it against the weight of the evidence for Supreme Court to award damages to plaintiff arising from Reyes' placement at Nomura.  Supreme Court assessed the witnesses' testimony and properly credited CTC's assertion that Morrissey was already CTC's contact before Yoo began working at CTC (see e.g. Free People of PA LLC v Delshah 60 Ninth, LLC, 169 AD3d 622, 623 [1st Dept 2019];  D.S. 53–16–F Assoc. v Groff Studios Corp., 168 AD3d 611, 611 [1st Dept 2019] ).  This finding was supported by other evidence, including an email pre-dating Yoo's employment at CTC between CTC's CEO, David Vitiello, and Nomura's Morrisey.

Yoo signed a Duty of Loyalty Agreement with CTC at the beginning of his employment, through which he agreed to keep information concerning plaintiff's clients (such as Nomura) confidential.  Yoo also confirmed that he would respect the Duty of Loyalty Agreement after he was fired, but he did not adhere to this agreement and used CTC's proprietary client information for the EJR defendants' benefit following his termination.  It was thus not against the weight of the evidence for Supreme Court to conclude that under these circumstances the EJR defendants were liable for Yoo's misuse of CTC's confidential client information with respect to Nomura.

Finally, Supreme Court properly awarded damages, as the award is supported by the record and rests largely on the credibility of the witnesses (see Free People, 169 AD3d at 623).  We reject the EJR defendants' contention that plaintiff failed to prove that their conduct proximately caused damages in the amount of the fees that they earned, as “courts may award a defendant's unjust gains as a proxy for compensatory damages in an unfair competition case” (see E.J. Brooks Co., 31 NY3d at 450).  In addition, the “causal relation” between the EJR defendants' conduct and plaintiff's damages was not “wholly unsubstantial and imaginary” (id. [internal quotation marks omitted] ).  The amount of the award was also appropriate.  The EJR defendants do not challenge the trial court's conclusion that different firms that specialize in placing information technology professionals with financial firms charge approximately the same percentage of a candidate's salary as their commission.