Opinion ID: 45
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Continued Viability of the Serious Questions Standard

Text: For the last five decades, this circuit has required a party seeking a preliminary injunction to show (a) irreparable harm and (b) either (1) likelihood of success on the merits or (2) sufficiently serious questions going to the merits to make them a fair ground for litigation and a balance of hardships tipping decidedly toward the party requesting the preliminary relief. Jackson Dairy, Inc. v. H.P. Hood & Sons, Inc., 596 F.2d 70, 72 (2d Cir.1979); accord Almontaser, 519 F.3d at 508; Checker Motors Corp. v. Chrysler Corp., 405 F.2d 319, 323 (2d Cir.1969); Hamilton Watch Co. v. Benrus Watch Co., 206 F.2d 738, 740 (2d Cir.1953). [4] The serious questions standard permits a district court to grant a preliminary injunction in situations where it cannot determine with certainty that the moving party is more likely than not to prevail on the merits of the underlying claims, but where the costs outweigh the benefits of not granting the injunction. See, e.g., F. & M. Schaefer Corp. v. C. Schmidt & Sons, Inc., 597 F.2d 814, 815-19 (2d Cir.1979). Because the moving party must not only show that there are serious questions going to the merits, but must additionally establish that the balance of hardships tips decidedly  in its favor, Jackson Dairy, 596 F.2d at 72 (emphasis added), its overall burden is no lighter than the one it bears under the likelihood of success standard. The value of this circuit's approach to assessing the merits of a claim at the preliminary injunction stage lies in its flexibility in the face of varying factual scenarios and the greater uncertainties inherent at the outset of particularly complex litigation. Preliminary injunctions should not be mechanically confined to cases that are simple or easy. Requiring in every case a showing that ultimate success on the merits is more likely than not is unacceptable as a general rule. The very purpose of an injunction ... is to give temporary relief based on a preliminary estimate of the strength of plaintiff's suit, prior to the resolution at trial of the factual disputes and difficulties presented by the case. Limiting the preliminary injunction to cases that do not present significant difficulties would deprive the remedy of much of its utility. 11A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2948.3 (2d ed.2009); see also Dataphase Sys., Inc. v. CL Sys., Inc., 640 F.2d 109, 113 (8th Cir. 1981) (en banc) (The very nature of the inquiry on petition for preliminary relief militates against a wooden application of the probability test.... The equitable nature of the proceeding mandates that the court's approach be flexible enough to encompass the particular circumstances of each case. Thus, an effort to apply the probability language to all cases with mathematical precision is misplaced.). [5] Indeed, the Supreme Court, prior to the trilogy of cases cited by VCG, has counseled in favor of a preliminary injunction standard that permits the entry of an injunction in cases where a factual dispute renders a fully reliable assessment of the merits impossible. In Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 279 U.S. 813, 49 S.Ct. 256, 73 L.Ed. 972 (1929), the Court dealt with a factual dispute, relating to the effect on the plaintiff of a state tax on oil revenues, which had to be resolved before the constitutional validity of [a] statute [could] be determined. Id. at 814, 49 S.Ct. 256. Faced with this situation, the Court instructed that [w]here the questions presented by an application for an interlocutory injunction are grave, and the injury to the moving party [in the absence of such an injunction] will be certain and irreparable... the injunction usually will be granted. Id.; see also Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968, 975-76, 117 S.Ct. 1865, 138 L.Ed.2d 162 (1997) (reversing the Ninth Circuit's finding that movants had shown a fair chance of success on the merits, while recognizing the fair chance standard and its potential application in future cases). The Supreme Court's recent opinions in Munaf, Winter, and Nken have not undermined its approval of the more flexible approach signaled in Ohio Oil. None of the three cases comments at all, much less negatively, upon the application of a preliminary injunction standard that softens a strict likelihood requirement in cases that warrant it. Munaf involved a preliminary injunction barring the transfer to Iraqi custody of an individual captured in Iraq by the Multinational Force-Iraq. Munaf, 128 S.Ct. at 2214-15. That injunction was premised on jurisdictional issues ... so serious, substantial, difficult and doubtful, as to make them fair ground for litigation and thus for more deliberative investigation. Id. at 2219 (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court vacated that injunction on the grounds that a likelihood of jurisdiction was irrelevant to the preliminary injunction consideration and could not substitute for a consideration of the merits. The Court in Munaf simply stated that a question as to a court's jurisdiction over a claim says nothing about the `likelihood of success on the merits,' id., but provided nothing in the way of a definition of the phrase a likelihood of success. See id. Nor does Winter address the requisite probability of success of the movant's underlying claims. While Winter rejected the Ninth Circuit's conceptually separate possibility of irreparable harm standard, 129 S.Ct. at 375-76, it expressly withheld any consideration of the merits of the parties' underlying claims, id. at 376, 381. Rather, the Court decided the case upon the balance of the equities and the public interest. 129 S.Ct. at 375-76, 381. [6] Finally, Nken likewise did not address the issue of a moving party's likelihood of success on the merits. Nken provides a four factor standard for granting a stay pending appeal, which the Court recognized as overlapping substantially with the preliminary injunction standard. 129 S.Ct. at 1761. Although the Court repeated the likely to succeed on the merits phrasing, it did not suggest that this factor requires a showing that the movant is more likely than not to succeed on the merits. [7] If the Supreme Court had meant for Munaf, Winter, or Nken to abrogate the more flexible standard for a preliminary injunction, one would expect some reference to the considerable history of the flexible standards applied in this circuit, seven of our sister circuits, and in the Supreme Court itself. [8] We have recognized this flexible standard since at least 1953, see Hamilton Watch, 206 F.2d at 740, and our standard has survived earlier instances in which the Supreme Court described the merits prerequisite to a preliminary injunction as a likelihood of success without specifically addressing the content of such a likelihood, see, e.g., Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 932, 95 S.Ct. 2561, 45 L.Ed.2d 648 (1975) (The other inquiry relevant to preliminary relief is whether respondents made a sufficient showing of the likelihood of ultimate success on the merits.). We have found no command from the Supreme Court that would foreclose the application of our established serious questions standard as a means of assessing a movant's likelihood of success on the merits. Our standard accommodates the needs of the district courts in confronting motions for preliminary injunctions in factual situations that vary widely in difficulty and complexity. Thus, we hold that our venerable standard for assessing a movant's probability of success on the merits remains valid and that the district court did not err in applying the serious questions standard to CGMI's motion. [9]