Injunction

For restraining or protective orders (family law & harassment), see Restraining order.

An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions. In some cases, breaches of injunctions are considered serious criminal offenses that merit arrest and possible prison sentences.

Rationale and reasons for injunctions

This injunctive power to restore the status quo ante; that is, to make whole again someone whose rights have been violated, is essential to the concept of fairness (equity). For example, money damages would be of scant benefit to a land owner who wished simply to prevent someone from repeatedly trespassing on his land.

These are some common reasons for injunctions:

• stalking
• domestic violence
• harassment
• discrimination
• bullying (in some cases)
• physical or sexual abuse
• the wrongful transfer of real property, also called fraudulent conveyance
• the disclosure of sensitive information in line with the Official Secrets Act 1989 (UK only)
• trademark infringement
• copyright infringement
• patent infringement
• trade secret disclosure
• tortious interference of contract
• criminal contempt
• civil contempt

Gag orders (many countries)

Main article: Gag order

A gag order is an order by a court or government restricting information or comment from being made public.

American injunctions

Temporary restraining orders

A temporary restraining order (TRO) may be issued for short term. A TRO usually lasts while a motion for preliminary injunction is being decided, and the court decides whether to drop the order or to issue a preliminary injunction.

A TRO may be granted ex parte, that is, without informing in advance the party to whom the TRO is directed. Usually, a party moves ex parte to prevent an adversary from having notice of one's intentions. The TRO is granted to prevent the adversary from acting to frustrate the purpose of the action, for example, by wasting or hiding assets (as often occurs in divorce) or disclosing a trade secret that had been the subject of a non-disclosure agreement.

To obtain a TRO, a plaintiff must prove four elements: (1) likelihood of success on the merits; (2) the extent to which the plaintiff is being irreparable harmed by the defendant's conduct; (3) the extent to which the defendant will suffer irreparable harm if the TRO issues; and (4) the public interest.

Other kinds of restraining orders

Many states have injunction laws that are written specifically to stop domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault or harassment and these are commonly called restraining orders, orders of protection, abuse prevention orders, or protective orders.

Injunctions in U.S. labor law context

After the United States government successfully used an injunction to outlaw the Pullman boycott in 1894 in the case of In re Debs, employers found that they could obtain federal court injunctions to ban strikes and organizing activities of all kinds by unions. These injunctions were often extremely broad; one injunction issued by a federal court in the 1920s effectively barred the United Mine Workers of America from talking to workers who had signed yellow dog contracts with their employers.

Unable to limit what they called "government by injunction" in the courts, labor and its allies persuaded the U.S. Congress in 1932 to pass the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which imposed so many procedural and substantive limits on the federal courts' power to issue injunctions as to effectively prohibit all federal court injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes. A number of states followed suit and enacted "Little Norris-LaGuardia Acts" that imposed similar limitations on state courts' powers. The courts have since recognized a limited exception to the Norris-LaGuardia Act's strict limitations in those cases in which a party seeks injunctive relief to enforce the grievance arbitration provisions of a collective bargaining agreement.

Employment discrimination

Differing from most other cases, where equitable relief is given very rarely, in discrimination cases, injunctive relief is actually the preferred method of remedy. However, if there is evidence that there is now a hostile relationship between the employer and employee, the court may order a reasonable amount of "front pay" along with the back pay (back pay: The amount of lost wages and benefits that an employee lost ever since he was terminated, up to the point that the judgment is entered).

Australian apprehended violence orders

A court may grant an apprehended violence order (AVO) to a person who fears violence, harassment, abuse, or stalking. A court may issue an AVO if it believes, on the balance of probabilities, that a person has reasonable grounds to fear personal violence, harassing conduct, molestation, intimidation, or stalking. A defendant's non-compliance with the order may result in the imposition of a fine, imprisonment, or both.

UK superinjunctions

See also: 2011 British super-injunction controversy

In England and Wales, a superinjunction (or super-injunction) is a form of gagging order in which the press is prohibited from reporting even the existence of the injunction, or any details of it. An example was the superinjunction raised in September 2009 by Carter-Ruck solicitors on behalf of oil trader Trafigura, prohibiting the reporting of an internal Trafigura report into the 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal. The existence of the superinjunction was revealed only when it was referred to in a parliamentary question that was subsequently circulated on the internet (parliamentary privilege protects statements which would otherwise be held to be in contempt of court). Before it could be challenged in court, the injunction was then varied to permit reporting of the question. By long legal tradition, parliamentary proceedings may be reported without restriction. Parliamentary proceedings are only covered by qualified privilege. Roy Greenslade credits the editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, with coining the word "super-injunction" in an article about the Trafigura affair in September 2009.

Another example of the use of a superinjunction was in a libel case in which a plaintiff who claimed he was defamed by family members in a dispute over a multimillion pound family trust obtained anonymity for himself and for his relatives. In March 2011 The Guardian speculated that "as many as 20 have been granted in the UK over the past 18 months", though Lord Neuberger's report into the usage of super-injunctions revealed that only two super-injunctions had been granted since January 2010. Many media sources were wrongly stating that all gagging orders were super-injunctions.

A "hyper-injunction" is similar but also includes an order that the injunction must not be discussed with members of Parliament, journalists or lawyers. One known hyper-injunction was obtained at the High Court in 2006, preventing its subject from saying that paint used in water tanks on passenger ships can break down and release potentially toxic chemicals. This example became public knowledge in Parliament under parliamentary privilege.

See also

• Anti-Social Behaviour Order (UK)
• Anti-suit injunction
• Anti-Injunction Act
• Burden of proof
• Civil litigation
• Interim order
• Cross-border injunction
• Declaratory judgment
• Equity (law)
• Equity court
• Gang injunction
• Lawburrows (Scotland)
• Lawsuit
• Mareva injunction
• Peace bond
• Protection From Abuse
• Standing

External links

• On the Difference Between Lawsuit, a Restraining Order, and an Injunction