Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-508_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 11

8 

AMG CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

filed within such period (not exceeding 20 days) as may 
be  specified  by  the  court  after  issuance  of  the  tempo-
rary  restraining  order  or  preliminary  injunction,  the
order or injunction shall be dissolved by the court and
be of no further force and effect: Provided further, That 
in  proper  cases  the  Commission  may  seek,  and  after 
proper proof, the court may issue, a permanent injunc-
tion.”  15 U. S. C. §53(b) (final emphasis added). 

similar  provisional 

Taken as a whole, the provision focuses upon relief that 
is prospective, not retrospective.  Consider the words “is vi-
olating” and “is about to violate” (not “has violated”) setting 
forth when the Commission may request injunctive relief. 
Consider  too  the  words  “pending  the  issuance  of  a  com-
plaint,” “until such complaint is dismissed,” “temporary re-
straining  order,”  “preliminary  injunction,”  and  so  forth  in
the  first  half  of  the  section.  These  words  reflect  that  the 
provision addresses a specific problem, namely, that of stop-
ping seemingly unfair practices from taking place while the
Commission  determines  their  lawfulness.    Cf.  §53(a) 
(providing 
false 
advertising regarding food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics is 
at issue).  And the appearance of the words “permanent in-
junction”  (as  a  proviso)  suggests  that  those  words  are  di-
rectly related to a previously issued preliminary injunction. 
They  might  also  be  read,  for  example,  as  granting 
authority for the Commission to go one step beyond the pro-
visional and (“in proper cases”) dispense with administra-
tive  proceedings  to  seek  what  the  words  literally  say
(namely, an injunction).  But to read those words as allow-
ing what they do not say, namely, as allowing the Commis-
sion to dispense with administrative proceedings to obtain
monetary relief as well, is to read the words as going well 
beyond the provision’s subject matter.  In light of the his-
torical importance of administrative proceedings, that read-
ing would allow a small statutory tail to wag a very large 

relief  where