FRESNO (LN) — U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley on Wednesday granted an ex parte temporary restraining order against former Rochester Midland Corporation Account Manager Charles Borders, finding the company likely succeeded on its trade secret misappropriation claims after Borders allegedly downloaded 3.5 gigabytes of proprietary data to an external device and his personal Gmail account before joining rival Cherokee Chemical, Inc.
Rochester Midland Corporation, which supplies specialty chemical products and sanitation programs, alleged that Borders, while still employed and recently promoted to District Manager, secretly removed core proprietary information days of his employment.
According to the complaint, Borders compressed the data to obscure its contents, deleted company records to impair traceability, and transmitted confidential materials to his personal Gmail account without authorization or a legitimate business purpose.
The plaintiff, which relies on customer-specific pricing margins, customized chemical programs, and standard sanitation operating procedures, argued that Borders’ abrupt resignation on May 1, 2026, and immediate announcement that he was joining direct competitor Cherokee Chemical, Inc., posed an immediate threat to its customer relationships and pricing integrity.
Nunley held that Rochester Midland adequately established it owned trade secrets, including customer pricing, margins, sales analytics, and revenue reports, and that it took reasonable measures to maintain their secrecy through employment agreements, NDAs, and data governance policies.
The court determined Borders likely obtained these secrets through improper means, noting that his actions—such as compressing files to obscure origins and deleting audit trails—were commonly associated with concealment rather than routine work activity.
Rochester Midland’s Vice President of Corporate Development, Robert Matthews, attested that Borders had no legitimate business justification for the transfers and never returned the data.
The judge ruled that the company demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm, noting that monetary damages could not remedy the potential for immediate price undercutting, customer diversion, and permanent erosion of goodwill if the information was disclosed to a competitor.
Nunley ordered Borders and those acting in concert with him to refrain from accessing, using, or disclosing any of Rochester Midland’s confidential information and to return all proprietary materials.
The judge waived the bond requirement typically mandated under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), citing Ninth Circuit precedent in Diaz v. Brewer.
Borders must show cause by May 18, 2026, why a preliminary injunction should not issue, with Rochester Midland permitted to file a reply by May 20, 2026.