## Facts

- Peggy Lawton Kitchens, Inc. manufactured and sold chocolate chip cookies using a recipe it claimed as a trade secret.
- In prior litigation, the Superior Court permanently enjoined Terrence M. Hogan and related defendants from making, baking, or selling chocolate chip cookies that “use or utilize” Kitchens’ formula; no damages were awarded, and the injunction was affirmed on appeal.
- Kitchens later filed a petition for civil contempt, alleging the defendants violated the injunction by continuing to sell cookies that still used Kitchens’ formula.
- After a full trial on the contempt petition, the judge made detailed subsidiary findings comparing the recipes and found many shared ingredients were common in commercial chocolate chip cookies.
- The judge found material differences between the formulas, including that Kitchens’ formula uniquely used nut meal (nut shavings/chaff), while the defendants’ post-injunction formula did not.
- The Superior Court concluded Kitchens failed to prove a violation of the injunction and dismissed the contempt petition.

## Issues

1. Whether Kitchens proved by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants’ post-injunction cookie recipe “use[d] or utilize[d]” Kitchens’ protected formula in violation of the permanent injunction.
2. Whether contempt may be used to enforce an injunction beyond its precise terms where the enjoined party sells a modified product allegedly derived from the protected trade-secret formula.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the dismissal of the civil contempt petition.
- The court held Kitchens did not establish “clear and undoubted disobedience” of the injunction by clear and convincing evidence.
- The court accepted the trial judge’s unchallenged subsidiary findings and agreed those findings did not warrant a contempt adjudication.
- The injunction was construed to forbid use of Kitchens’ precise formula; it was not expanded in contempt proceedings to cover a sufficiently altered recipe.

## Legal Principles

- Civil contempt requires clear and convincing proof of a clear court order and a clear, unequivocal violation of that order.
- Appellate review of a contempt judgment gives substantial weight to the trial judge’s subsidiary factual findings, particularly when they are not challenged on appeal.
- Injunctions protecting trade secrets are enforced according to their specific language; contempt is not a mechanism to enlarge an injunction’s scope after entry.
- Where an injunction prohibits use of a specific formula, similarity or alleged derivation does not establish contempt absent proof that the new product in fact uses the enjoined formula within the order’s meaning.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal of the contempt petition because the plaintiff failed to show a clear violation of a narrowly framed injunction prohibiting use of its precise trade-secret cookie formula, and contempt could not be used to broaden the injunction to reach a modified recipe found materially different on unchallenged facts.


Peggy Lawton Kitchens, Inc. v. Hogan, 403 Mass. 732, 532 N.E.2d 54 (1989)