US Mortgage Accuses Canopy Mortgage Of Tulsa Division Takeover

US Mortgage Corporation (USMC) has accused Canopy Mortgage of carrying out a coordinated effort to recruit nearly its entire Tulsa, Oklahoma division and obtain thousands of loan files and other confidential borrower information, according to a lawsuit filed Nov. 19 in Tulsa County District Court. The petition, verified by Steven A. Milner, CEO of US Mortgage Corporation, outlines a sweeping set of allegations that include:

• Misappropriation of Trade Secrets  
• Breach of Contract
• Tortious Interference with Prospective Advantage
• Tortious Interference with Contract
• Conversion
• Civil Conspiracy 

USMC alleges a group of 31 employees — including loan officers, branch managers, processors, and support staff — resigned simultaneously on Jan. 2, 2025. The company claims the resignations were planned in advance while employees were still on its payroll and that they were organized by Nancy Woods, a longtime employee who had risen to Regional Vice President overseeing the Tulsa market.

USMC Claims Entire Division Was Lost

Plaintiff USMC claims it had spent years building out the Tulsa division, supporting a unit that originated roughly $10 million per month in residential mortgage loans. The company says the sudden loss of the team resulted in significant financial disruption, the loss of trained personnel and business relationships, and potential exposure to federal data-security requirements.

According to the plaintiff’s petition, “Ms. Woods and her associates engaged moving trucks and secured a new lease in Tulsa in advance to facilitate the transition of personnel and property to Defendant in the event that USMC did not ‘cooperate’ in essentially giving them the physical space they occupied.”

The company describes the exit not as a typical case of employee turnover, but as a wholesale transfer of a functioning retail division. In the petition, USMC argues that “a direct competitor cannot plausibly accept the wholesale transfer of an entire operational division, complete with confidential borrower files, without recognizing the unlawful nature of the conduct.”

Allegations Of Misused Borrower Data

The most serious allegations outlined in the petition involve borrower information. USMC claims that employees under Ms. Woods’s supervision removed extensive nonpublic personal information, including loan applications, bank statements, tax returns and internal business documents.

One of the departing employees, Gabrielle Silva, is alleged to have emailed herself a list of about 4,000 consumers shortly before the group resigned. Some borrower files were later recovered “in unsecured private residences,” including that of former employee Kalio Enlow, according to the filing. USMC contends that once this information left its systems, it had lost protections required under federal law, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the FTC Safeguards Rule.

According to the petition, the defendants used personal email accounts to communicate and, in some cases, instructed colleagues not to use their company addresses. USMC alleges these steps were taken to avoid detection and allowed customer records, loan files, and internal models to be transmitted without authorization.

Claims Against Canopy Mortgage

The petition goes on to argue that Canopy benefited from the transfer of borrower data and from what USMC describes as a functioning loan pipeline. The company alleges that Canopy “knew or deliberately ignored” that the information and files belonged to USMC.

“Company Defendant and Individual Defendants have refused to cooperate with Demands to return the information taken and/or allow USMC the opportunity to determine the entire scope of the theft despite notice, thereby continuing to misappropriate USMC’s trade secrets,” the petition reads.

USMC alleges that Canopy has not returned or accounted for the information, despite repeated requests from USMC. It also claims that Canopy’s onboarding process, pre-prepared offer letters and relocation planning were integral to the transition.

USMC Seeks Injunctive Relief And $5M In Damages

USMC is asking the court for sweeping emergency measures, including a temporary restraining order and long-term injunctive relief barring the use or disclosure of any of its information. The company is seeking the return of all loan files, customer lists, and borrower NPPI, as well as a forensic review of devices and cloud accounts believed to contain confidential data.

In addition to injunctive relief, USMC is seeking more than $5 million in damages for the alleged loss of its entire Tulsa branch. The petition also seeks compensatory, consequential, and punitive damages under the Oklahoma Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The size of the demand reflects the scope of what USMC says it lost: a fully built, revenue-producing division that originated roughly $10 million per month in loans, along with trained personnel, established referral partnerships, and the goodwill that underpinned the company’s presence in the region. The company also points to potential regulatory exposure stemming from the alleged removal and unsecured storage of thousands of borrower files, a factor that can significantly increase financial liability.

The scale of these allegations stands out in an industry where trade-secret disputes typically center on one or two employees and small client lists. By contrast, USMC alleges an entire division resigned simultaneously, thousands of borrower NPPI files left the company, data later surfaced “in unsecured private residences,” and the departures were coordinated with pre-prepared resignation letters and instructions not to use company email. The petition was also verified under oath by the CEO, a relatively rare step that underscores the company’s claim that the conduct poses not just competitive harm but substantial regulatory and consumer-data risk.

Order Entered, Case Still Developing

The docket indicates that Judge Rebecca Nightingale has entered an order in the case, though the contents have not yet been posted. Canopy Mortgage and the individual defendants — Ms. Woods, Sarah Honegger, and Ms. Silva — have not yet filed responses in the publicly available court record.