Future Profits
Lost Profits
Lost Profits Based on a Future Contract
California Law
(…) In addition, “lost anticipated profits cannot be recovered if it is uncertain whether any profit would have been derived at all from the proposed undertaking.” Food Safety Net Svcs. v. Eco Safe Sys. USA, Inc., 209 Cal. App. 4th 1118, 1132 (2012) (citation and alteration omitted). More specifically, “lost profits based on a future contract cannot be recovered when the contract is uncertain or speculative.” Id. (citation omitted). Consequently, BladeRoom will not be entitled to future profits absent definitive evidence of a future contract that was lost due to Emerson’s misappropriation of Bladeroom’s trade secret. See Sargon Enters., Inc. v. Univ. of S. Calif., 55 Cal. 4th 747, 775 (2012) (explaining that there is no recovery for “claimed lost profits” that are “uncertain, hypothetical and entirely speculative”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). If the asserted loss profit testimony is not based on “objective evidence of past volume of business or any other provable data” the testimony should be excluded. Id. at 778 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). At bottom, there must be “a substantial similarity between the facts forming the basis of the project projections and the business opportunity that was destroyed.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, August 30, 2021, BladeRoom Group Ltd. v. Emerson Electric Co., Docket No. 19-16583, For Publication)
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