Opinion ID: 4448201
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A Separate Document?

Text: The formal requirements of Rule 65(d)(1)—those actually included in the text of the rule—are vital when a district judge exercises one of the most awesome powers of the oﬃce: issuing a preliminary injunction that is enforceable by contempt sanctions. Here are the textual requirements: (1) Contents. Every order granting an injunction and every restraining order must: 6 Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 (A) state the reasons why it issued; (B) state its terms specifically; and (C) describe in reasonable detail—and not by referring to the complaint or other document—the act or acts restrained or required. Compliance with these requirements ensures that a party who is restrained by a preliminary injunction knows clearly what conduct is being restrained and why. Oral orders can be vague and easily misunderstood. Incorporating other documents can lead to uncertainty. Failing to state clearly the reasons for the injunction may lead to hasty, sometimes toocasual analysis. In this case, the preliminary injunction is in a document titled “Opinion and Order,” which sets forth a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the facts and the law. Under the heading “Order” on page 49, the document spells out what is prohibited: IT IS ORDERED that: 1) Plaintiﬀ MillerCoors, LLCʹs motion for pre- liminary injunction (dkt. #8) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART as follows. De- fendant Anheuser Busch is PRELIMINARILY ENJOINED from using the following language within ten (10) days of this order in its commer- cials, print advertising and social media: • Bud Light contains “100% less corn syrup”; • Bud Light in direct reference to “no corn syrup” without any reference to “brewed with,” “made with” or “uses”; Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 7 • Miller Lite and/or Coors Light and “corn syrup” without including any reference to “brewed with,” “made with” or “uses”; and • Describing “corn syrup” as an ingredient “in” the finished product. MillerCoors, LLC v. Anheuser-Busch Cos., 385 F. Supp. 3d 730, 760 (W.D. Wis. 2019). This approach was not unusual; district judges issue such orders often, combining the opinion and the order, ordinarily without objection from the parties or this court as to the form. See, e.g., Dexia Credit Local v. Rogan, 602 F.3d 879, 884 (7th Cir. 2010) (aﬃrming injunction in same document as reasons for issuing it: “The injunction is suﬃciently precise and self-contained, and we require nothing more to comply with Rule 65.”); Russian Media Group, LLC v. Cable America, Inc., 2009 WL 440957, at  (N.D. Ill. Feb. 19, 2009) (combining findings of fact, conclusions of law, and specific terms of preliminary injunction in one document), aﬀ’d, 598 F.3d 302 (7th Cir. 2010). The order at the end of the combined “Opinion and Order” complied with all of the express requirements of Rule 65(d)(1). It served all the purposes of that rule. No party has objected to its form. When the panel questioned this form in oral argument, counsel for Anheuser-Busch confirmed that his client understood that it was being enjoined and understood what was required. It also understood that it could appeal if it wanted to. The order may or may not turn out to be sound on the merits, but there is no formal problem with it, nothing that aﬀects appellate jurisdiction, and nothing that justifies a remand for the district judge to copy the text from page 49 and paste it into a new, separate document. 8 Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 The majority, however, asserts that Rule 65(d) requires every injunction to be set forth on a separate document that does not refer to any other document. With respect, that requirement does not appear in Rule 65(d). The requirement does appear as dicta in a number of our cases dating back to 1988, but as explained below, those cases required us to address other, genuine problems in the preliminary injunctions. Until now, we have never attached any real consequences to a failure to comply only with this imagined, non-textual requirement. Rather than attach new consequences now through this remand, we should retreat from our earlier dicta. A good place to start is BankDirect Capital Finance, LLC v. Capital Premium Financing, Inc., 912 F.3d 1054, 1057 (7th Cir. 2019), where we identified several critical problems in a preliminary injunction: the injunction left important issues unresolved; it used ambiguous language and seemed to incorporate another document; and it required no bond. We also said this regarding a separate document: Third, the district court failed to enter an injunction as a separate document under Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(1)(C). Language in an opinion does not comply with Rule 65(d). See Gunn v. University Committee to End the War, 399 U.S. 383 (1970). Neither side reminded the district court of the need to enter an injunction. Id. As noted, Rule 65(d)(1)(C) contains no such requirement. My colleagues and I agree, of course, that language in an opinion that stops short of an explicit order does not amount to an enforceable order. Here, however, the language of the Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 9 order was clear here, and Gunn is not on point for a “separatedocument” requirement.1 In BankDirect, we recognized that the district court had issued a written order that it expected the defendant to obey. That was enough to give us appellate jurisdiction—draining of any force the suggestion in the opinion that “no injunction” had been entered. Failure to comply with the textual requirements of Rule 65(d) does not defeat appellate jurisdiction, lest the enjoined party be unable to obtain appellate review with the threat of contempt sanctions hanging over her head. E.g., Abbott v. Perez, 138 S. Ct. 2305, 2321 (2018); Advent Electronics, Inc. v. Buckman, 112 F.3d 267, 273 (7th Cir. 1997) (finding appellate jurisdiction over appeal from preliminary injunction that merely incorporated terms of another document). By contrast, when there is genuinely no injunction at all, there is no appellate jurisdiction. E.g., Bates v. Johnson, 901 F.2d 1424, 1428 (7th Cir. 1990) (“Because the state is not under an enforceable constraint, there is nothing before us on appeal.”). We vacated the injunction in BankDirect—but not because of the formal problems we identified. We vacated because the 1 In Gunn, a three-judge district court had issued an opinion saying that a statute was unconstitutional. Regarding relief, the opinion said: “The Plaintiffs herein are entitled to their declaratory judgment to that effect, and to injunctive relief against the enforcement of [the statute] as now worded, insofar as it may affect rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.” 399 U.S. at 386. No language in the district court’s opinion could be understood as enjoining any particular defendant from doing anything in particular, as required under Rule 65. No wonder, then, that the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1253 because the district court “has issued neither an injunction nor an order granting or denying one.” 399 U.S. at 390. 10 Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 injunction should have expired, according to its rationale, months before the appeal was even argued. 912 F.3d at 1059. In Auto Driveaway Franchise Systems, LLC v. Auto Driveaway Richmond, LLC, 928 F.3d 670 (7th Cir. 2019), we repeated, with very careful wording, the separate-document point from BankDirect: “We interpret Rule 65(d)(1)(C) to require that an injunction must be embodied in a standalone separate document.” Id. at 676 (emphasis added), citing 912 F.3d at 1057. The district court in Auto Driveaway issued one document. It started with eight pages of legal analysis and ended with a preliminary injunction with specific terms. Our opinion did not question the “separate-document” dicta from BankDirect, but we declined to attach any consequences to failure to comply. We found that the absence of a separate document did not aﬀect appellate jurisdiction. 928 F.3d at 676–79. The order had the practical eﬀect of an injunction and satisfied all of the textual requirements of Rule 65(d). Id. at 678. We therefore said there was no need to remand the case to cure the lack of a separate document, and we proceeded to the merits. Id. at 679. We should do the same here.2 The “separate-document” requirement in this circuit stems from language in Bethune Plaza, Inc. v. Lumpkin, 863 F.2d 525 (7th Cir. 1988), where the district court had failed to comply with the Rules’ express and important requirements. The 2My colleagues and I agree that failure to comply with the express formal requirements of Rule 58 and 65 can cause all sorts of avoidable and expensive procedural snarls. That has been shown in scores or hundreds of our cases in recent decades. I too can be a Rule 58 “hawk.” My objection here is to enforcement of a non-textual requirement that serves no apparent purpose beyond the textual requirements. Nos. 19-2200, 19-2713 & 19-2782 11 district court had issued an opinion that was intended to resolve the case entirely. It ended: It is therefore ordered, that summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiﬀ. The court fur- ther orders that the preliminary injunction now in eﬀect against defendant be made permanent, subject to the following conditions: defendant is permanently enjoined from determining any vi- olations, or assessing any penalties or fines, or issuing a conditional license, to plaintiﬀ, for any matter arising out of the matters listed in the Proof of Service dated November 14, 1986. 863 F.2d at 526. That was bad enough, but the court’s separate final judgment was not even consistent with that opinion. The