Opinion ID: 2198160
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Irreparable Harm to the District

Text: Although the primary reason for granting a preliminary injunction is to prevent irreparable harm, this factor is less decisive where the likelihood of success on the merits is very strong, as we perceive it to be here. See Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Ass'n v. Federal Power Comm'n, 104 U.S.App. D.C. 106, 110, 259 F.2d 921, 925 (1958). The District identifies two distinct harms that will result from private arbitration. First is the unnecessary and additional expense of arbitration and delay of the inevitable proceeding before the CAB. Second is that private dispute resolution in a closed conference room in Austin of a public contract is contrary to the intent of the legislature, as clearly expressed in the PPA. The harms the District asserts are made more in its role as a governmental entity than as party to the disputed contract. Though neither of these harms might be sufficient to justify extraordinary relief in another case, we think that here, where we expect that a CAB proceeding will be required for the reasons outlined above, these harms justify the injunction. A party's monetary loss is not usually considered sufficient to justify equitable relief, see Group Ins. Admin., 633 A.2d at 23 (citing Wisconsin Gas Co. v. FERC, 244 U.S.App. D.C. 349, 354, 758 F.2d 669, 674 (1985)), but the unnecessary expenditure of public moneys that will not be recoverable should be avoided. Similarly, although an eventual hearing before the CAB is not necessarily foreclosed by an initial arbitration, there is a possibility that the proceeding before the CAB we think the statute mandates will never take place if, as the District posits, as a party to the contract it were to be satisfied with the arbitrator's award, and never bring the issue for CAB or judicial review. See also New Motor Vehicle Bd. v. Orrin W. Fox Co., 434 U.S. 1345, 1351, 98 S.Ct. 359, 54 L.Ed.2d 439 (1977) ([A]ny time a State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.).