NEW Cooperative and two of its employees are being sued after Landus Cooperative said they stole critical trade information and customers, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court last week.

Landus said it has lost over $250,000 in payments refunded to former customers after two disgruntled employees, Brian Berns and Jeffrey Headley, left the Ames-based farmers’ co-op in December for NEW Co-op, based in Fort Dodge. At least 18 farmers with business at Landus have asked to have their soil samples sent to NEW Co-op.

In court filings, Landus has requested expedited temporary and permanent injunctions against NEW, pending trial, to prevent further damage during “prepay season,” the time from November to February in which farmers get the best discount by prepaying for products and services. In support of the injunctions, the suit accuses Berns and Headley of destroying evidence critical to the case.

Landus has requested a jury trial, saying in filings it believes it’s entitled to “exemplary” damages for ongoing and irreparable damage to customer relationships with farmers after the pair conspired to steal information gained through their work there.

Citing text messages on company-owned phones and digital forensics analysis, Landus said Headley disclosed customer and pricing information to Berns and destroyed evidence, making the extent of damages from stolen information impossible to determine.

The complaint accuses Headley of forwarding dozens of company emails to his personal email address before leaving Landus on Dec. 21, including customer lists, pricing information and inventory information. Headley’s former employer also said he deleted thousands of emails between Dec. 28 and 30, though the co-defendant disputed that, saying they were spam emails.

“I sent the emails to my home computer because I wanted that information if growers needed it from me,” Headley said in response to the suit. “I did not believe at the time that I forwarded these emails to my home computer that I was doing anything improper. I knew growers or Landus might have questions about a farmer’s agronomy business and I wanted to have that information if asked.”

Texts cited by the plaintiff insinuate that Headley shared other information by lending his computer to Berns. Though the messages highlighted show that the two discussed allowing Berns to borrow his computer, they said they never went through with the plan. Attorneys for NEW said there was no evidence that Berns took any confidential information or accessed any of Headley’s emails.

NEW Cooperative has denied the allegations, according to court documents.

“Landus’ conclusory statement that Headley and Berns have ‘already begun using Landus’ stolen confidential information to unfairly compete against Landus’ is without support in the record,” said Stu Cochrane, attorney for the defendants. “Notably absent is any direct evidence that the information was accessed or used by any defendant or evidence that any Landus customer has based its decision not to do business with Landus because of some advantage gained from this information.”

Berns said he had many of his farmer customers’ phone numbers memorized and didn’t need Landus spreadsheets to know how to get in touch with many of the people he worked with over decades. He said the information cited in text messages was “not proprietary” and did not “provide any competitive benefit in servicing farmers.”

Of Landus’ approximately 7,000 member owners, the customers affected were located in Calhoun and Webster counties. Employees are prohibited from working for nearby competitors for two years by non-compete agreements and are required to keep information like customer lists and pricing lists confidential even after their employment ends, Landus said.

“Landus is generally the first out of the gate each year with prices and the competition reacts and either tries to beat Landus or match its price,” attorney Angela Gray said for the plaintiff. “Instead of being the leader on prices, Landus is now in the position of playing defense and is finding itself out of the market on product pricing it formerly commanded and led.”

Berns, of Lohrville, was terminated from his position as a field sales agronomist at Landus on Dec. 7 after criticizing the company’s decisions regarding Christmas bonuses and changes to its retirement program, which he said would have cost him about $1 million. The NEW Cooperative employee started as an agronomist in 1994 with Farmers Cooperative, which merged with West Central Cooperative to become Landus in 2016.

Headley, of Paton, resigned on Dec. 21, two weeks later. The field sales agronomist worked for West Central Cooperative starting in 2008 before the merger.