Court Opinion

ID: 9757014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:14:34.378251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:34.183428
License: Public Domain

*389MACK, Associate Judge
(dissenting):
I would affirm.
The decision to grant a preliminary injunction normally lies in the discretion of the trial judge and our scope of review is accordingly limited. A Quaker Action Group v. Hickel, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 176, 180, 421 F.2d 1111, 1115 (1969). While it is true that the trial court’s findings and conclusions might have been more artfully expressed, I do not find them so clearly erroneous, in the face of this record, as to amount to an abuse of discretion.1 I see no reason for disturbing, on this interlocutory appeal, the findings of two trial judges2 that the appellant, in erecting an impassable fence, was subjecting appellees to irreparable injury in the use and enjoyment of their property. To do so seems particularly inappropriate where, as here, the trial court’s ruling was merely to permit appellees to use a walkway which they had always used,3 and thus to preserve the “status quo”, i. e. the last uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. See District 50, United Mine Workers of America v. International Union, United Mine Workers of America, 134 U.S.App.D.C. 34, 37, 412 F.2d 165, 168 (1969).
Nor do I see the finding of irreparable harm as being unsupported because of allegations remote or speculative. The interference with' land use was a presently existing real threat. I find it a somewhat strained construction of the law to say that the appellees, before seeking preliminary relief from such interference, are required to show that there were pending negotiations for sale (exemplifying a diminution in value of the property) or needed repairs4 (showing extreme inconvenience of access) or (most difficult of all) an approaching calamity.
Finally, I note that a primary consideration with respect to the granting of a preliminary injunction is the balancing of the relative convenience or inconvenience to the respective parties. See District 50, United Mine Workers of America, supra, 134 U.S.App.D.C. at 37, 412 F.2d at 168; Levy v. Arsenault, D.C.Mun.App., 63 A.2d 671, 672 (1949). While there is some suggestion that the appellant denied access to the walkway after appellees had entertained in their backyard, the appellant did not offer testimony to urge harm or inconvenience. The trial court specifically found that the appellees’ interest in having continuous access to the rear of their property pendente lite exceeded any harm or inconvenience to the appellant. I agree; and I respectfully dissent.

. It would appear, for example, that the trial court in finding open, adverse, and continuous use by appellees of the thoroughfare on appellant’s property, was not adjudicating the merits but addressing himself to the likelihood of success on the merits. See Industrial Bank of Washington v. Tobriner, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 51, 54, 405 F.2d 1321, 1324 (1968).

. Prior to the hearing on the preliminary injunction, a hearing was had on a motion for a temporary restraining order before another trial judge. While that court, because of the close proximity of the date he set for the hearing on the preliminary injunction, declined to issue the temporary retraining order, he specifically noted:
“. . .it appearing to the Court that the acts of the defendant complained of, consisting of willfully and without right denying plaintiffs the use of the alley and destroying and damaging plaintiffs’ land and other property by the construction of a fence are subjecting the plaintiffs to continuing and irreparable injury

. The ruling did not require removal of the fence but a hinging which has been accomplished.

. According to appellees, the erection of the fence substantially destroyed a row of their bamboo trees about 20 feet in length.