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P develops, manufactures, and sells commercial jet inks. P develops, manufactures, and sells commercial jet inks. Ds are Ishwar Mansukhani (D), his wife, Ruth Brand, and their businesses, Brand Associates and Brand M, Inc. D is an experienced ink chemist, and his wife is also a physical chemist, although she had no experience with inks until she and D started their businesses in late 1980. In 1976, P had a wholly owned subsidiary called M & T Chemicals, Inc., which hired D as a chemist. D signed an agreement with M & T promising not to use its trade secrets and to return all documents at the end of his employment. D developed commercial jet inks. P sold M & T to Axco Industries, Inc., and in August 1979, Axco sold M & T to Whittaker Corporation. Then, in October 1980, Whittaker sold the assets and rights pertaining to the jet ink business back to P. P asked D to stay on the job, but he declined the offer. Instead, he and his wife started their own commercial jet ink business in December 1980. They began to sell commercial jet inks to several of P's customers at substantially lower prices than P was offering. P sued Ds for misappropriating P's trade secrets. After a trial, the district court found that D had violated the confidentiality agreement by taking with him copies of patent applications, ink formulas, and other documents when he left his old job. The court found that D had contacted several former customers of Whittaker and had sold jet inks to them for substantially lower prices. D had had access to information needed to formulate inks suitable for those customers' specific needs, and the inks D had sold were precisely identical to the '400 Series' inks he had helped to develop for P. Under Wisconsin trade secret law, the court found that the formulas for the 400 Series inks were trade secrets and that Ds had misappropriated those secrets. The court entered a permanent injunction on June 18, 1982. Ds were enjoined from selling the commercial jet inks developed while D was employed by P's predecessors to the companies or individuals for whom those inks were specifically developed, or to any other companies or individuals. Ds later asked the court to clarify that order on whether the order extended to inks other than the three which had been the subjects of the suit, and they asked whether the order covered inks which had different ingredients than those in the commercial version of the 400 Series inks described in the court's June 18 memorandum. The court stated that the injunction was intended to cover ' any of those commercial jet ink formulas developed for specific customers while D was employed by P's predecessors.' Ds appealed the district court's permanent injunction, and this court affirmed. On July 20, 1983, P filed ex parte papers contending that D was violating the terms of the permanent injunction by selling their inks SK-2914 and SK-2916. P asked for an ex parte TRO and for a finding that Ds were in contempt of court by selling inks violating the injunction. The court refused. Five days later, P presented a second ex parte motion with a supplementary brief. P sought an ex parte temporary restraining order which (1) would enjoin Ds from selling jet inks of any type to any of plaintiff's customers and (2) would permit P's employees to enter Ds' premises for the purpose of seizing ink samples and various documents. The court signed the ex parte order. The court ordered United States Marshals to accompany P's employees to Ds' plant and to seize ink samples and documents that P's employees would identify. The marshals were directed to keep the materials pending a further order from the court. The order set a hearing date of August 5 with respect to P's request for a preliminary injunction. P took the samples pursuant to the order. P also notified all of its commercial jet ink customers that Ds were subject to the temporary restraining order. Ds filed a motion asking the district court to lift or modify the temporary restraining order, which the district court denied. On August 5, 1983, the court concluded that a preliminary injunction should issue. Ds appealed. Ds argued that the temporary restraining order was improperly issued ex parte and that the preliminary injunction was invalid.

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