Opinion ID: 2998037
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Traditional Equitable Principles

Text: Our traditional approach to preliminary injunctions requires that the party seeking the injunction demonstrate, among other things, “that it has ‘no adequate remedy at law’ and will suffer ‘irreparable harm’ if preliminary relief is denied.” Abbott Labs. v. Mead Johnson & Co., 971 F.2d 6, 11 (7th Cir. 1992). If the moving party cannot make this showing, “a court’s inquiry is over and the injunction must be denied.” Id. We review the district court’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. Id. at 6 No. 05-1236 12. A court abuses its discretion when it commits an error of law or makes a factual finding that is clearly erroneous. Id. at 13. The union offers several arguments as to why it will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction. First, it contends that Bellon has violated the CBA repeatedly, and would continue to do so but for the injunction. Even if this is true, it establishes only that Bellon’s actions may harm the union; it does not prove that the harm will be irreparable. An injury is irreparable for purposes of granting preliminary injunctive relief only if it cannot be remedied through a monetary award after trial. See Graham v. Med. Mut. of Ohio, 130 F.3d 293, 296 (7th Cir. 1997). Thus, even repeated and ongoing violations of a CBA do not warrant a preliminary injunction if each violation may be remedied by a monetary award. Relying on Duct-O-Wire Co. v. U.S. Crane, Inc., 31 F.3d 506 (7th Cir. 1994), the union asserts that an ongoing violation amounts to irreparable harm. Plaintiff overreads Duct-O-Wire. In that case, the defendant subscribed to a telephone number that it knew the plaintiff previously had used for its business. When customers called the number looking to buy the plaintiff’s products, the defendant led them to believe that it was the plaintiff’s agent. This enabled the defendant to capture the plaintiff’s sales and deprived the plaintiff of “the opportunity to maintain and develop relationships with existing and potential customers.” Id. at 509-10. Because the value of the diverted sales and lost opportunities would have been impossible to track, the plaintiff would have suffered irreparable harm without an injunction. The injunction was warranted not because the harm was ongoing, but because it was irreparable. Here, Local 100 does not explain why ongoing violations of the CBA could not be atoned for with money. Second, plaintiff argues that its members will lose confidence in the union if, pending trial, Bellon is permitted to No. 05-1236 7 flout the parties’ agreement with apparent impunity. Plaintiff contends that this loss of confidence cannot be measured in or remedied with dollars, and can be prevented only through an immediate injunction. Not every conceivable injury entitles a litigant to a preliminary injunction. For example, speculative injuries do not justify this extraordinary remedy. See, e.g., Tom Doherty Assocs., Inc. v. Saban Entm’t, Inc., 60 F.3d 27, 37 (2d Cir. 1995); Pub. Serv. Co. of N.H. v. Town of W. Newbury, 835 F.2d 380, 383 (1st Cir. 1987); Goldie’s Bookstore, Inc. v. Superior Court, 739 F.2d 466, 472 (9th Cir. 1984). Cf. Am. Hosp. Supply Corp. v. Hosp. Prods. Ltd., 780 F.2d 589, 595 (7th Cir. 1986). The union’s concern about lost confidence falls into that category. Given the frequency of litigation between unions and employers, Local 100’s members likely understand that lawsuits take time to resolve disputes, and that the absence of an immediate victory does not imply defeat. The union is free to explain the difficulties of litigation to its members if they ask why more is not being done sooner. And if some members’ confidence is shaken, the chance that vindication of the union at trial would not restore that confidence is too speculative to justify a preliminary injunction. Furthermore, accepting the plaintiff’s argument would open the door to preliminary injunctive relief in a substantial majority of cases. Nearly every litigant will prefer an immediate injunction to a monetary award sometime in the future. Many will be able to construct an argument that a non-party with an interest in its success will lose confidence in its ability to control the dispute absent an immediate, drastic remedy. But the unease that often accompanies litigation is one of the ordinary burdens of our legal system that, like litigation expense, Renegotiation Bd. v. Bannercroft Clothing Co., Inc., 415 U.S. 1, 24 (1974), does not qualify as the type of injury warranting a preliminary injunction. 8 No. 05-1236 Third, the union fears that Bellon may complete its work on the MacArthur bridge before the district court can hold a trial. If so, plaintiff’s members will never again work on the bridge without the benefit of an injunction. The union characterizes this as a permanent job loss which, it asserts, amounts to irreparable harm. A permanent loss of employment, standing alone, does not equate to irreparable harm. See, e.g., Shegog v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chi., 194 F.3d 836, 839 (7th Cir. 1999) (affirming denial of preliminary injunction where laid off teachers failed to show irreparable harm); Hetreed v. Allstate Ins. Co., 135 F.3d 1155, 1158 (7th Cir. 1998) (fired employee not entitled to preliminary injunction because she failed to show irreparable injury, among other things); E.E.O.C. v. City of Janesville, 630 F.2d 1254, 1259 (7th Cir. 1980) (district court abused its discretion by reinstating fired police chief pending trial on the merits given the lack of irreparable harm). Rather, as in other cases involving preliminary injunctive relief, we ask whether the termination will harm the plaintiff in a way that cannot be remedied through money. See id. (“Reinstatement pending a trial on the merits . . . is an extraordinary remedy permissible only upon a substantial showing of irreparable injury.”). Our opinion in Local Lodge No. 1266, International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO v. Panoramic Corp., 668 F.2d 276 (7th Cir. 1981), upon which plaintiff relies, is not to the contrary. Although we stated in Panoramic that damages would not adequately remedy a permanent loss of jobs, id. at 286, that language must be read in context. Panoramic was threatening to sell a manufacturing division that employed 113 workers to a group of investors who intended to fire all of the workers once the sale closed. We affirmed the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction preventing the sale until an arbitrator could determine whether the transaction violated a CBA between the workers’ union and Panoramic. Our No. 05-1236 9 conclusion that the union would suffer irreparable harm was driven in large part by the practical impossibility of fashioning a damage remedy under these circumstances. The arbitrator would have been required to calculate the damages suffered by each of 113 workers involved in a complex, interrelated organization. But for the sale, the division would have continued in operation as a going concern, employing these workers for an unknowable length of time. This case does not present similar problems. The work on the MacArthur bridge is a discrete project that has created two jobs for the union’s laborers. Although we do not know precisely how long it will take, the length of the project will be readily apparent after the fact. That the laborers may lose their jobs on the bridge permanently does not imply that the harm could not be remedied by a monetary award. Fourth, the union contends that Bellon may breach the CBA in a way that will trigger some lost wages that cannot be calculated. Plaintiff concedes that any wages lost because of Bellon’s refusal to employ its members on the MacArthur bridge may be calculated with ease. The CBA sets forth a detailed schedule of hourly wages broken down by job type. The union could learn through discovery the number of laborers, type of work, and person-hours demanded by the bridge project, and apply the relevant wage rate to determine lost wages. The union asserts, however, that it cannot calculate the wages that may be lost if Bellon takes on additional construction projects within the CBA’s territorial jurisdiction but refuses to hire Local 100’s laborers. Because we cannot anticipate the type of work or number of person-hours those projects will require, plaintiff alleges that it is impossible to calculate the related damages. We disagree. A plaintiff may suffer irreparable harm if the nature of the loss makes monetary damages difficult to calculate. Somerset House, Inc. v. Turnock, 900 F.2d 1012, 10 No. 05-1236 1018 (7th Cir. 1990). The harm plaintiff points to, however, eludes calculation because it is speculative, not because, if it occurred, it could not be quantified. As stated above, a plaintiff cannot obtain a preliminary injunction by speculating about hypothetical future injuries. Tom Doherty Assocs., 60 F.3d at 37. Thus, the union’s argument that we cannot know whether or how Bellon might breach the agreement in the future merely reveals that an injunction is not warranted. If the union’s predictions come true, a jury could apply the same straightforward method of calculating lost wages from the future projects as it would with the work on the MacArthur bridge.2 Fifth, the union asserts that injunctive relief is necessary because it will avoid logistical problems that would hamper a suit for money damages. It points out that the CBA establishes a referral system, rather than identifying specific members of the union to work on particular projects. The union maintains a list of eligible employees from which it makes its referrals, and signatories agree to hire members from the top of the list. When the work on the MacArthur bridge began, Bellon hired Sean Abernathy and Leroy Bailey because they happened to be on the top of this list. If Bellon is permitted to lay off Abernathy and Bailey, the two will be forced to look for other work. If they find jobs (thereby mitigating their damages for lost wages), plaintiff submits it will be impossible to determine which 2 The union cites Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Local 19 v. Herre Bros., Inc., 201 F.3d 231, 250 (3d Cir. 1999), to support its argument that a preliminary injunction should issue when the plaintiff cannot predict how the defendant will breach a contract in the future. Herre Bros. addressed whether a district court had abused its discretion by ordering specific performance after a judgment had been entered on the merits. It did not discuss whether a preliminary injunction would have been appropriate, and therefore it is irrelevant to this appeal. No. 05-1236 11 union member was harmed by Bellon’s breach of the CBA. According to the union, the answers could include the nextlisted unemployed member on the day the work began, any member who sat idle over the course of the project, or a combination of unemployed members. Plaintiff contends that a preliminary injunction would avoid this conundrum. This argument proceeds from the flawed assumption that one measures the adequacy of a legal remedy by a court’s ability to impose it prior to any discovery. The test of a monetary award, however, is whether it fairly compensates a plaintiff after trial, Graham, 130 F.3d at 296; Anderson v. U.S.F. Logistics (IMC), Inc., 274 F.3d 470, 478 (7th Cir. 2001), and therefore after discovery has been completed. Before discovery has begun, uncertainty will often exist about an issue of fact—like causation—bearing on damages. A rule that permitted injunctive relief solely because of this uncertainty would give litigants a perverse incentive to avoid doing their homework. An injunction might be warranted if the nature of the case caused us to doubt the litigants’ ability, though pursuing discovery diligently and in good faith, to prove some fact even if it were true. The union has not shown, however, that the facts of this case are unproveable. Ordinary discovery will reveal the number of laborers called for by the MacArthur bridge project, their qualifications, and the days and hours they worked. This data may be compared to the union’s referral lists to determine which of plaintiff’s members, if any, were qualified and available to work on the bridge and failed to find other employment. Depending upon the details of the union’s referral practice, and applying ordinary principles of causation, it is likely that the parties will be able to identify which member or members were harmed by Bellon’s breach of the CBA. We sketch this approach neither to identify which member was harmed nor to mandate a comprehensive plan for discovery. Rather, we 12 No. 05-1236 present the outline to demonstrate the parties’ ability to resolve the issue by applying ordinary legal principles and discovery tools. Sixth, the union contends that Bellon’s breach of the CBA may cause plaintiff’s members to lose fringe benefits. The CBA requires that employers contribute a fixed amount per hour worked by a member into a health and welfare fund on that member’s behalf. When they are not working, members do not earn contributions towards these funds, and their health care coverage may lapse. The union asserts that a member could lose coverage because of Bellon’s actions, fall ill, and be forced to pay his or her health care costs out of pocket. The union has not shown that this is likely. It has not informed us of the minimum number of hours a member must work to be eligible for coverage, nor has it explained why the handful of laborers who might have worked on the MacArthur bridge will be unable to reach that threshold by working for other signatories to the CBA. Assuming that it might occur, a loss of fringe benefits does not amount to irreparable harm if the district court holds the power, following a judgment on the merits, to order the losing party to pay missed contributions. See Adams v. City of Chicago, 135 F.3d 1150, 1154-55 (7th Cir. 1998). Section 301 of the LMRA grants district courts that authority. See 29 U.S.C. § 185; Galindo v. Stoody Co., 793 F.2d 1502, 1516 (9th Cir. 1986). Cf. Contempo Design, Inc. v. Chi. & N.E. Ill. Dist. Council of Carpenters, 226 F.3d 535, 553-55 (7th Cir. 2000). Moreover, plaintiff has not explained why its members could not purchase individual health insurance to hedge against a catastrophic loss. Although the premiums for individual insurance are likely higher than contributions to the health and welfare fund, a monetary award could include the difference as incidental damages. No. 05-1236 13 In sum, the union has failed, as a matter of law, to demonstrate that it will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction.