Opinion ID: 1233690
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Irreparable Harm, Balancing the Equities and Public Interest

Text: Legacy argues that the district court's assessment of the non-merits factors  irreparable harm, balancing the equities and the public interest  relied on errors of law, including a mistaken assumption that the court lacked the authority to narrowly enjoin the challenged projects to the extent they are inconsistent with the 2001 Framework. After Winter, we agree with Legacy. The district court appears not to have recognized its power to issue the narrow injunction Legacy requested. See High Sierra Hikers Ass'n v. Blackwell, 390 F.3d 630, 641 (9th Cir.2004) (recognizing the district court's broad latitude in crafting equitable relief); United States v. Odessa Union Warehouse Co-op, 833 F.2d 172, 175 (9th Cir.1987) (The essence of equity jurisdiction is the power of the court to fashion a remedy depending upon the necessities of the particular case.). Its consideration of the non-merits factors therefore lacks a comparison of the 2001 and 2004 Frameworks with respect to the harms, equities and public's interest associated with each. When deciding whether to issue a narrowly tailored injunction, district courts must assess the harms pertaining to injunctive relief in the context of that narrow injunction. See Winter, 129 S.Ct. at 376. In Winter, the district court's original preliminary injunction imposed six restrictions on Navy sonar training exercises off the coast of Southern California to prevent harm to marine life nearby. After obtaining an exemption from the executive branch, the Navy filed a motion to vacate the injunction, but challenged only two of the six restrictions. See Winter, 129 S.Ct. at 376. The Supreme Court explained that [t]he District Court did not reconsider the likelihood of irreparable harm in light of the four restrictions not challenged by the Navy. This failure is significant in light of the District Court's own statement that... one of the unchallenged mitigation restrictions... would bar use of MFA sonar in a significant portion of important marine mammal habitat. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Put more simply, the district court in Winter took an all-or-nothing approach to assessing the harms instead of addressing the options actually on the table  four restrictions versus six restrictions. The record reveals a similar error here, touching on each of the non-merits factors. The district court's application of these factors boiled down to a choice between allowing USFS to move ahead with the 2004 Framework or requiring USFS to take no action at all with respect to fire prevention. For example, in balancing the equities, the district court compared the harm from the 2004 Framework to the irreparable harm associated with taking no action.  (Emphasis added.) This approach left unexamined the relative harm from allowing USFS to proceed consistent with the 2001 Framework. The federal and intervening defendants urge us to affirm the district court's discretionary determination that Legacy failed to show irreparable harm, a balance of equities in its favor or that the public interest favors an injunction. See Winter, 129 S.Ct. at 376 (refusing to reach the merits because plaintiffs' failure to meet equitable factors was dispositive). They reason that, because Winter heightened the necessary harm showing, if the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding no possibility of irreparable harm, then Legacy's injunction necessarily fails under Winter. We cannot properly review the district court's discretionary assessment of the non-merits factors, however, because the court compared the 2004 Framework only to taking no action. We would have to conduct our own assessment of the non-merits factors associated with Legacy's injunction request, which would overstep the bounds of abuse of discretion review. See Odessa Union, 833 F.2d at 173 (remanding a preliminary injunction appeal so district court could exercise its discretion under the correct legal standard); Arcamuzi v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 819 F.2d 935, 939 (9th Cir.1987) (same); cf. Apache Survival Coalition v. United States, 21 F.3d 895, 906-07 (9th Cir.1994) (noting that when the district court assesses an environmental case under a misapprehension of the law, we often remand unless the record is already sufficient to decide the issue on appeal). We therefore reverse the decision and remand the case to the district court to exercise its discretion in light of the correct standard. Odessa Union, 833 F.2d at 173.