Opinion ID: 220601
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Other Injunction Factors

Text: In granting GPG’s request for a preliminary injunction, the district court considered the remaining injunction factors: irreparable harm to the moving party, balance of hardships, and public interest. We address each of these factors in turn.
The district court found that GPG would likely be irreparably harmed in the absence of a preliminary injunction because it would be deprived of its bargained-for forum and because it would likely be forced to litigate the same issues on multiple fronts at the same time. The district court relied on Texas Instruments, Inc. v. Tessera, No. C-00-2114 CW, slip. op. at 6 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 6, 2001), for the view that “litigating simultaneously in California and the ITC will cause financial and business hardship . . . [and that] the inconvenience and disruption to its business is irreparable.” Leviton argues that “deprivation of one’s chosen forum . . . is not irreparable harm per se.” Appellant’s Br. at 16 GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG 50-51. Leviton cites Camping Construction Co. v. District Council of Iron Workers, 915 F.2d 1333, 1349 (9th Cir. 1990), for this proposition. In Camping Construction the issue in dispute was whether the Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibited a district court from enjoining arbitration of a dispute arising under a collective bargaining agreement. Next, Leviton argues that litigating in multiple forums does not constitute irreparable harm because GPG allegedly “brought this on [itself]” by filing the second suit in the District of New Mexico. Appellant’s Br. at 51. According to Leviton, GPG “should have raised [its] implied license argument in the California Action rather than file their declaratory judgment action [in New Mexico].” Id. Leviton also cites Hospah Coal Co. v. Chaco Energy Co., 673 F.2d 1161 (10th Cir. 1982) for support. In Hospah, the Tenth Circuit remanded a New Mexico court’s preliminary injunction against participating in copending Texas cases on the theory that the parties should have litigated the issue of forum in the first-filed court under the provisions of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b) and 28 U.S.C. §1404. Id. at 1162-3. GPG responds that, in the absence of the preliminary injunction, it would face irreparable harm because of the expenses involved in defending the ITC proceeding and because its forum selection clause would be reduced to a nullity. GPG relies on district court decisions that are not binding on this court for each of these propositions. We conclude that the district court’s determination of irreparable harm was proper. Leviton’s reliance on Camping Construction Co. is misplaced. That case involved the question of a district court’s power to enjoin arbitration of a dispute arising under a collective bargaining agreement, consistent with the provisions of the Norris-Laguardia Act. 915 F.2d at 1334. The Ninth Circuit held: GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG 17 [A]n [arbitration] award, prior to judicial enforcement . . . . has no more effect than any provision of a collective bargaining agreement normally has; it cannot by it- self inflict anything like irreparable injury [. . . . A] labor arbitration is likely to have therapeutic value even for the losing party or parties[.] Id. at 1349. Unlike an arbitration, an ITC proceeding can have a direct and significant impact on a responding party and is not a “therapeutic” exercise. Leviton’s reliance on Hospah is equally unhelpful. As an initial matter, Hospah does not compel litigation of the license defense in California. At most it suggests that GPG should have sought to enforce the forum selection clause by first moving to dismiss or transfer in the California court rather than by preliminary injunction in a new action. But even assuming that that is what Leviton intended to argue, the argument is a non-sequitur: GPG was entitled to litigate this action in the District of New Mexico by virtue of the forum selection clause to which Leviton agreed. Any irreparable harm resulting from the incremental challenge of also litigating in California and the ITC, would be the consequence of Leviton’s election to sue in two other forums, both of which it had already bargained away. Moreover, by suing in both California and the ITC, Leviton had already imposed the burden of dual litigations on GPG, notwithstanding the automatic stay of the district court case pending the 337 investigation. At most, Leviton has suggested that GPG would not suffer irreparable harm as a result of litigating the choice of forum first in California. But litigating the choice of forum issue itself is not the basis of irreparable harm in the present case. 18 GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG Moreover, Hospah does not control. In Texas Instruments, the Court held that the question of whether to enjoin participation in a section 337 action would be evaluated under this court’s procedural law. 231 F.3d at 1328. Likewise, in Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Chiron Corp., 384 F.3d 1326, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 2004), in affirming a district court’s injunction against a party’s further prosecution of a copending action in another district court, this court held that “because of the importance of national uniformity in patent cases . . . injunctions arbitrating between co-pending patent declaratory judgment and infringement cases in different district courts are reviewed under the law of the Federal Circuit.” This holding establishes not only that Federal Circuit, and not Tenth Circuit, precedent controls this case, but also that the remedy of injunction is appropriate in these circumstances. The district court’s finding of irreparable harm, being neither clearly erroneous nor predicated on an error of law, will not be disturbed.
The district court found that the balance of hardships favored the injunction because GPG would suffer the hardships of litigating on two fronts and being deprived of its bargained-for forum, as discussed above, but Leviton could obtain substantially the same relief in district court as in the ITC. Leviton’s argument concerning the balance of hardships relies upon its critique of GPG’s allegations of irreparable harm, and adds that Leviton is being deprived of the benefits of a unique forum with unique remedies. GPG argues that Leviton could get the same relief in district court, and that Leviton should not be able to count GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG 19 as hardship its inability to avail itself of a forum it knowingly bargained away. We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the balance of hardships favored the injunction. Having contracted for a specific forum, Leviton should not be heard to argue that the enforcement of the contract into which it freely entered would cause hardship.
The district court also found that the public interest was best served by entering the preliminary injunction. The district court largely relied on M/S Bremen v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 407 U.S. 1, 10 (1972), for the proposition that forum selection clauses “are prima facie valid and should be enforced unless enforcement is shown by the resisting party to be ‘unreasonable’ under the circumstances.” The district court understood this statement to indicate that enforcement of forum selection clauses is, generally, in the public interest. Leviton argues that the “noncontroversial statement that public policy favors enforcement of valid forum selection clauses” Appellant’s Br. at 52. does not apply because the forum selection clause does not govern this dispute, and because it is contrary to public interest to hinder an agency investigation. GPG responds that the forum selection clause does govern, and that, accepting this, Leviton does not appear to dispute the proposition that forum selection clauses should be enforced. GPG also argues that the injunction does not apply to the ITC as such, but only to Leviton. We agree with the district court that public policy favors the enforcement of the forum selection clause in this 20 GENERAL PROTECHT v. LEVITON MFG case. Moreover, we find Leviton’s argument that the injunction contravenes public interest by hindering an agency investigation unpersuasive. As this court explained in Texas Instruments, “section 337 proceedings at the ITC are recognized as litigation.” 231 F.3d at 1331. The preliminary injunction here “will not and cannot enjoin the ITC action.” Id. at 1332. There is no public interest served by excusing a party’s violation of its previously negotiated contractual undertaking to litigate in a particular forum. For these reasons, the district court correctly applied the factors of irreparable harm, balance of hardships, and public interest. The grant of the preliminary injunction was not an abuse of discretion.