Preliminary injunction

“ A preliminary injunction was denied by the District Court and on appeal the decree was affirmed, and the appellant's counsel consenting if the Court decided that the State Court had jurisdiction, the bill was dismissed. 29 F. (2d) 31. ”

“ Today, we are not called upon to second-guess the wisdom of Congress, but to apply the law it has passed.
II. Preliminary Injunction At first glance, Plaintiffs' request for an injunction does not appear as strong as their claim pursuant to the All Writs Act. However, I believe that an injunction is appropriate and, at the very least, we should issue an injunction to permit the district court to review to review Plaintiffs' claims on the merits.
To prevail on their request for injunctive relief, Plaintiffs must demonstrate the following: (1) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits ”

“ Given this limited purpose, and given the haste that is often necessary if those positions are to be preserved, a preliminary injunction is customarily granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits. A party thus is not required to prove his case in full at a preliminary injunction hearing, and the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by a court granting a preliminary injunction are not binding at trial on the merits. ”

“ Although the court had jurisdiction of the suit and of the parties, the order for the preliminary injunction was unwarranted as a matter of law, and the orders imposing the fines must, so far as they have not been executed, be held, under the special circumstances of this case, to be reviewable by this court, under the appeal from the final decree. ”

“ So, too, if a prior adjudication has followed a final hearing upon pleadings and proofs, especially after a protracted litigation, greater weight should be given to it than if it were made upon a motion for a preliminary injunction. These are substantially the views embodied in a number of well-considered cases in the circuit courts and circuit courts of appeals. ”

“ The Government seeks to create a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation in which either the courthouse door is barred for lack of assertion of a private, unique injury or a preliminary injunction is denied on the ground that the litigant has advanced private injury which does not warrant an injunction adverse to a competing public interest. ”

“ Upon the hearing in the Circuit Court, that court determined that the injunction which had been granted in the preliminary stage of this cause was improvidently allowed, and that the bill must be dismissed. From this decree this appeal is taken.
The natural limit of the obligation of a surety is to be found in the obligation of the principal; and when that is extinguished, the surety is in general liberated. ”

“ As in our opinion the District Court had jurisdiction and a duty to try the question whether preliminary injunctions should issue, and as that question has not yet been considered, the cases should be remanded to that Court with directions to proceed to the trial. Generally it is not desirable that we should pass upon such matters until they have been dealt with below. ”

“ Our conclusion is that an injunction should issue restraining the plaintiffs from maintaining their action. Such an injunction, in the circumstances disclosed, may issue consistently with section 265 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1242) . ”

“ D. 681, furnishes an almost humorous illustration of the reluctance with which a mandatory injunction is granted. He allows a “perpetual injunction to restrain the defendant from permitting his present skylight
to remain.” ”

“ Where the questions presented by an application for an interlocutory injunction are grave, and the injury to the moving party will be certain and irreparable, if the application be denied and the final decree be in his favor, while if the injunction be granted the injury to the opposing party, even if the final decree be in his favor, will be inconsiderable, or may be adequately indemnified by a bond, the injunction usually will be granted. ”

“ The prohibition con-tained in the statute, that writs of injunction shall not be granted, without reasonable notice to the adverse party, or his attorney, extends to injunctions granted by the Supreme Court, or the Circuit Court, as well to those that may be granted by a single Judge. ”

“ Where, as here, an applicant seeks an injunction rather than a stay, the applicant faces an even greater burden. “Unlike a stay, which temporarily suspends judicial alteration of the status quo, an injunction grants judicial intervention that has been withheld by the lower courts.” ”

“ The Kennedy case, in other words, involved solely the question whether a three-judge court need always be summoned where no injunctive relief was asked or contemplated. The answer involved an analysis of 28 U.S.C. § 2281 and § 2282. We are now concerned with s 1253 and the meaning of 'an order granting or denying * * * an * * * injunction.' The declaratory judgment may well contain a 'thou shalt not' as commanding as any injunction. Or its refusal may be as definitive an adjudication as the refusal of an injunction. ”

“ A three-judge court must be convened for final hearings on applications for permanent injunctions against the enforcement of state statutes only where an interlocutory injunction has been sought and pressed to a hearing. ”

“ See generally Currie, The Three-Judge District Court in Constitutional Litigation, 32 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1 (1964) . The Court clearly had those considerations in mind when it observed, 'While there are similarities between injunctions and declaratory judgments, there are also important differences. * * * (T) his Court's jurisdiction under (§ 1253) is to be literally construed. * * * It would hardly be faithful to such a construction to read the statutory term 'injunction' as meaning 'declaratory judgment. ”

“ That court held that the findings of the District Court were supported by substantial evidence, except that it did not consider whether the evidence supported the findings that an injunction would not insure better compliance in the future and would be unjust to petitioner. In its view the latter findings were immaterial. For it construed § 205 (a) of the Act to require the issuance of an injunction or other order as a matter of course, once violations were found. ”

“ An injunction is actually the giving of validity to a judge’s own individual opinion. The injunction had its origin during the reign of Henry VIII., when Cardinal Wolsey augmented the authority of the Court of Chancery in exercising his equitable authority over everything that could be a matter of judicial inquiry. ”

“ In the case before us every plea tendered by the defendants embraces within its commencement the entire cause of action, averring that the plaintiff should not have or maintain his action; yet each of them in its body and substance, is limited to the condition of the injunction-bond and to some stipulation in that condition to which each plea specifically refers. ”

“ In a suit to which the state is neither formally nor really a party, its officers, although acting by its order and for its benefit, may be restrained by injunction, when the remedy at law is inadequate, from doing positive acts, for which they are personally and individually liable, taking or injuring the plaintiff's property, contrary to a plain official duty requiring no exercise of discretion, and in violation of the constitution or laws of the United States. ”

“ When the court sees no just cause for superseding or suspending the effect of an injunction bond, or undertaking, it should be enforced in pursuance of its terms; and the party for whose benefit it was given will be entitled to an assessment of damages. ”

“ The granting or dissolution of a temporary injunction stands on the same footing. The granting of a permanent injunction is part of the final decree, and abides the fate of the decree itself. And as to the finding of the issues for the complainant, that, as we have seen, is not a matter that can be examined on a bill of review. The only assignm nt, therefore, which we can recognize, is the general one, that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the bill of review, and entering a decree for the complainant. ”

“ It is a settled rule of the Court of Chancery, in acting on applications for injunctions, to regard the comparative injury which would be sustained by the defendant, if an injunction were granted, and by the complainant, if it were refused. Kerr on Injunctions, 209, 210. And if the legal right is doubtful, either in point of law or of fact, the court is always reluctant to take a course which may result in material injury to either party ”

“ The District Court granted an interlocutory injunction, [2] and after trial on a stipulation from which the facts appear as above recited, granted a permanent injunction. The Circuit Court of Appeals, by a divided court, affirmed. ”

“ Section 1292 (a) (1) permits appeals from 'Interlocutory orders * * * granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions * * *.' An order should be appealable within the meaning of this statute if in substantial effect it is equivalent to an injunction, and as a matter of fact we have so held. ”

“ Appeals have been taken from the temporary injunction issued in that suit on behalf of the United States and with which much of the present phase of this litigation is concerned. We are advised that on May 31, 1951, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard argument on a motion to stay the temporary injunction pending appeal from the order granting the temporary injunction and has taken that motion under advisement. ”

“ The conclusion to be drawn from all the cases is that after a defendant has been notified of the pendency of a suit seeking an injunction against him, even though a temporary injunction be not granted, he acts at his peril and subject to the power of the court to restore the status, wholly irrespective of the merits as they may be ultimately decided. ”

“ But it is said that this is not due course of law, because the judge granting the injunction is required to take security of the applicant, and that no remedial process can be within the meaning of the Constitution which requires such a bond as a condition precedent to its issue. ”

“ Denies a temporary or permanent injunction, grants a temporary or permanent injunction except where granted at an ex parte hearing, or discharges, vacates, or modifies or refuses to discharge, vacate, or modify a temporary or permanent injunction ”

“ If there was error in excluding the 'official' responsibility of the others, it was not one of which they could complain, and it was not assigned for error upon their appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals. If they were subject to injunction at all, they were so in their individual capacities. Whether the decree will bind their successors in office, or their fellow members of the union, is a question to be determined hereafter, if and when proceedings are taken to enforce the injunction against parties other than the answering defendants. ”

“ Hence, taking the precent case as an illustration, the United States may proceed by a bill in chancery to quiet its title, in aid of which, if a proper case is made, a writ of injunction may be obtained. Or it may bring an action of ejectment, in which, on a direct issue between the United States as plaintiff and the present plaintiff as defendant, the title of the United States could be judicially determined. ”

“ Nothing is so difficult as to bring within any general rule every case in which a special injunction ought to be granted; but, when an action has regularly proceeded, and is on the very eve of trial, an ex parte injunction to stop it is an order such as I have not before seen. ”

“ Although they proceeded to discuss the merits of the case, they intimated at the outset a strong doubt whether, in any event, an injunction could be granted. If this doubt was well founded, there is nothing more to be said, since the ground of jurisdiction is gone. ”

“ The parties are citizens of different states and the matter in controversy exceeds in value the jurisdictional requirement. On bringing the suit, the plaintiff applied for an interlocutory injunction restraining the enforcement against it of the amendatory act pending the decree on final hearing ”

“ The court is not to issue an injunction simply because one is asked, or because the charge is made that a common nuisance is maintained in violation of law. The statute leaves the court at liberty to give effect to the principle that an injunction will not be granted to restrain a nuisance, except upon clear and satisfactory evidence that one exists. ”

“ The District supreme court entered a decree setting aside its original decree, and dismissed the bill, and dissolved the injunction theretofore granted, but being of opinion that, as matter of law, the complainants and sureties on the injunction bond given in the case were not liable to damages thereon, the motion for ascertainment of damages upon such undertaking was overruled and denied, and the injunction undertaking canceled and annulled. ”

“ But the mere fact that a court has found that a defendant has committed an act in violation of a statute does not justify an injunction broadly to obey the statute and thus subject the defendant to contempt proceedings if he shall at any time in the future commit some new violation unlike and unrelated to that with which he was originally charged. ”

“ If it is found that appellants' rights have not been unreasonably impaired, having due regard to all the facts and circumstances and the injury which may be caused a appellees as weighed against the benefits accruing to appellants, then the injunction should be denied. ”

“ The burden upon the plaintiff state fully and clearly to establish all essential elements of its case is greater than that generally required to be borne by one seeking an injunction in a suit between private parties. ”

“ On that ground, the trial court denied the injunction and ordered the bill dismissed without prejudice to the right of the plaintiff 'to hereafter apply for an injunction against the respondent if its activities in the future shall bring it properly within the purview' of those paragraphs. ”