Court Opinion

ID: 9468491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:16:14.421226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:53.465031
License: Public Domain

*716HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction. To the contrary, the relief granted was fully justified by the record.
First, the equities are strongly in ABA’s favor. It spent $1.4 million in capital investments, trucks and equipment, warehouse leasing, and the building of accounts, clientele and goodwill. ABA’s business is successful and ongoing. Coors has benefited, is benefiting and will continue to benefit in the future from ABA’s investments and efforts.
Second, ABA has, for the reasons stated in detail by the trial court, a likelihood of success on the merits. At the very least, it seems likely that it will obtain a court order temporarily restoring its franchise. It will then be able to transfer the franchise to another company and recover its investment and goodwill in the process. While Coors must approve the transferee, it obviously cannot unreasonably withhold approval.1
Third, ABA has shown that it is threatened with irreparable harm. It not only stands to lose the good will that it has built and to suffer damage to its reputation, but it also stands to lose the right to sell the distributorship as an ongoing business. See Stenberg v. Cheker Oil Co., 573 F.2d 921 (6th Cir. 1978); Milsen Co. v. Southland Corp., 454 F.2d 363 (7th Cir. 1971).
Fourth, the relief given by the district court is carefully tailored to the circumstances. The order does not put ABA back in business; rather, it permits Coors to operate the ABA franchise by paying ABA its business expenses of $77,000 per month. This is a very modest sum when one considers that Coors is profiting from the operation of the business, that the sum paid only permits ABA to maintain its business so that if it prevails in the action, it will be able to return to its business, and that ABA has posted a $450,000 bond.2
I believe the majority’s reliance on Jack Kahn Music v. Baldwin Piano & Organ, 604 F.2d 755 (2d Cir. 1979), is misplaced. There, the Court emphasized that the effect of the injunction would be to freeze Baldwin into an intimate and continuous relationship with a dealer it no longer wished to be associated with. Here, Coors is back in control of the distributorship, and the only impact of the temporary injunction is to permit the ABA facility to be maintained pending the final disposition of this action.
I do agree with the majority that the case should be promptly tried on remand. I am, moreover, confident that the district court will do so.

. For other cases involving Coors’ efforts to terminate distributorships, see, e. g., Adolph Coors Co. v. FTC, 497 F.2d 1178 (10th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1105, 95 S.Ct. 775, 42 L.Ed.2d 801 (1975); R. E. Spriggs Co. v. Adolph Coors Co., 94 Cal.App.3d 419, 156 Cal. Rptr. 738 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1076, 100 S.Ct. 1024, 62 L.Ed.2d 758 (1980).

. The trial court found that “most of the delay in processing the equitable issues presented in regard to defendant Coors’ ex parte termination of plaintiffs distributorship may have been occasioned by positions which defendant Coors has elected to take.”