## Facts

- John P. Alevizos had a long background in professional baseball and real estate; from 1969–1974 he served as administrative vice president of the Boston Red Sox and helped design a spring-training complex in Winter Haven, Florida.
- In 1989, Alevizos prepared short-form, preliminary development plans for a project he called “Westbrook,” which envisioned a residential and commercial community centered around a spring-training baseball complex, drawing from the Winter Haven model.
- While looking for a site in northern Palm Beach County, Alevizos identified a 937-acre tract owned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (the Foundation).
- Alevizos contacted the Foundation about buying the land. The Foundation asked him to disclose his plans so it could evaluate the land and determine a fair-market value.
- Alevizos provided his preliminary Westbrook plans to the Foundation under alleged confidential conditions.
- The Foundation declined to sell the tract to Alevizos.
- Later, the Foundation sold a different but nearby parcel to another developer (George DeGuardiola, through related entities), for a baseball stadium project that included surrounding residential and commercial development similar to the Westbrook plan.
- Alevizos sued the Foundation and related entities alleging (1) misappropriation of an idea and (2) a contract implied in law (unjust enrichment), claiming the defendants used his disclosed development idea without compensating him.
- The trial court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, and Alevizos appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint stated a cause of action for misappropriation of an idea based on Alevizos’s alleged confidential disclosure of the Westbrook development plan and defendants’ later pursuit of a similar stadium-centered development.
2. Whether the complaint stated a cause of action for contract implied in law (unjust enrichment) based on defendants’ alleged benefit from the disclosed idea without payment.

## Decision

- The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the order dismissing the complaint for failure to state a cause of action.
- Taking the well-pleaded allegations as true and considering the complaint’s attachments, the court concluded Alevizos did not plead a legally protectable idea because the alleged development idea was not sufficiently novel and concrete.
- Because the alleged benefit conferred on defendants was the same non-protectable idea, the unjust-enrichment (contract implied in law) claim also failed as pleaded.

## Legal Principles

- On a motion to dismiss, the court’s review is limited to the four corners of the complaint, including attachments incorporated into it; well-pleaded allegations are accepted as true, but attachments can defeat a claim when they negate an element.
- A claim for misappropriation of an idea requires more than a generalized business scheme; the pleaded idea must be sufficiently specific and legally “novel” (not merely a commonly known approach) to qualify for protection.
- A claim for contract implied in law (unjust enrichment) requires a benefit conferred and retained under circumstances that make nonpayment unjust; disclosure of a non-novel, generalized development idea is not, by itself, the kind of benefit that supports restitution.

## Conclusion

The appellate court affirmed dismissal because, even accepting Alevizos’s allegations of confidential disclosure, the pleadings and incorporated materials described only a general stadium-centered mixed-use development plan lacking the novelty and specificity needed for an idea-misappropriation claim, and that same deficiency defeated the unjust-enrichment theory predicated on the alleged use of the idea.


Alevizos v. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 764 So. 2d 8 (1999)