Court Opinion

ID: 9391042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-29 00:00:51.138805+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:39.179238
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-50145     Document: 00516731070          Page: 1     Date Filed: 04/28/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                        United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                 Fifth Circuit

                                                                               FILED
                                                                           April 28, 2023
                                   No. 22-50145                           Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                               Clerk

   Restaurant Law Center; Texas Restaurant Association,

                                                            Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                       versus

   United States Department of Labor; Honorable Martin
   J. Walsh, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor; Jessica Looman,
   Acting Administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, in
   her official capacity,

                                                         Defendants—Appellees.

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Western District of Texas
                            USDC No. 1:21-CV-1106

   Before Higginbotham, Duncan, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
   Stuart Kyle Duncan, Circuit Judge:
          The Restaurant Law Center and the Texas Restaurant Association
   (“Plaintiffs”) challenge a Department of Labor regulation that refines how
   the federal minimum wage applies to tipped employees. The district court
   denied Plaintiffs a preliminary injunction on the sole ground that they failed
   to establish irreparable harm from complying with the new rule. We disagree.
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   Because Plaintiffs sufficiently showed irreparable harm in unrecoverable
   compliance costs, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
                                            I.
          The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. 29 U.S.C.
   §§ 206(a)(1)(C), 213(a). There is an exception for “tipped employee[s],”
   meaning “any employee engaged in an occupation in which he customarily
   and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips.” Id. § 203(t). Tipped
   employees may be paid as low as $2.13 per hour, provided their tips fill out
   the rest of the minimum wage. Id. § 203(m)(2)(A). This is known as the “tip
   credit.” Over the past decades, the Department of Labor has fleshed out the
   contours of the tip-credit provision through regulations and other guidance. 1
          In late 2021, the Department revised and added to a regulation about
   when an employee works in a “tipped occupation” under § 203(t). See 29
   C.F.R. § 531.56(e), (f) (2021). In relevant part, the new rule permits an
   employer to take a tip credit, not only for an employee’s tip-producing work,
   but also for other work that “directly supports tip-producing work, provided
   that the employee does not perform that work for a substantial amount of
   time.” 29 C.F.R. § 531.56(f)(4). In turn, a “substantial amount of time”
   exists when:
          (i) The directly supporting work exceeds a 20 percent
          workweek tolerance, which is calculated by determining 20
          percent of the hours in the workweek for which the employer
          has taken a tip credit. The employer cannot take a tip credit for
          any time spent on directly supporting work that exceeds the 20

          1
            See Fair Labor Standards Act Amendments of 1966, Pub. L. No. 89-601, § 602,
   80 Stat. 830, 844 (1966) (delegating authority to Secretary of Labor); Tip Regulations
   Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); Partial Withdrawal, 86 Fed. Reg. 60,114,
   60,116–19 (Oct. 29, 2021) (discussing Department’s guidance “[o]ver the past several
   decades”).

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          percent tolerance. Time for which an employer does not take a
          tip credit is excluded in calculating the 20 percent tolerance; or

          (ii) For any continuous period of time, the directly supporting
          work exceeds 30 minutes. If a tipped employee performs
          directly supporting work for a continuous period of time that
          exceeds 30 minutes, the employer cannot take a tip credit for
          any time that exceeds 30 minutes. Time in excess of the 30
          minutes, for which an employer may not take a tip credit, is
          excluded in calculating the 20 percent tolerance in paragraph
          (f)(4)(i) of this section.
   Ibid. The 20% rule in subpart (i) essentially codifies the “80/20 guidance”
   that had appeared in various Department documents over the past three and
   a half decades. See 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,116–17 (discussing development in
   Wage and Hour Division opinion letters and Field Operations Handbook of
   “80/20 guidance”). The “continuous 30-minute” rule in subpart (ii) is
   entirely new, however. See id. at 60,115–20 (providing no historical precursor
   on the 30-minute limitation). Finally, the new rule carries forward the
   Department’s longstanding “dual jobs” regulation, which recognizes that,
   for employees employed in both tipped and non-tipped occupations,
   employers may claim the tip credit only for the time those employees spend
   in the tipped occupation. See id. at 60,116; see also 29 C.F.R. § 531.56(e).
          In December 2021, Plaintiffs challenged these amendments to
   § 531.56 in federal court. They alleged the rule violated the Fair Labor
   Standards Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Constitution’s
   separation of powers. On December 17, 2021, Plaintiffs moved for a
   preliminary injunction. The district court held an evidentiary hearing on
   February 9, 2022.
          On February 22, 2022, the district court denied a preliminary
   injunction. The court did not reach the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims. Rather,

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   the court assumed Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits but
   concluded they had failed to show they were irreparably harmed by the costs
   of complying with the new rule. Compliance costs, the court reasoned,
   “should have already been incurred” because the rule had been in place a
   month before Plaintiffs sued. The court found any “remaining” costs to be
   “unspecific,” “purely speculative,” and “overstate[d].” For instance, the
   court emphasized that the new rule “does not require the level of detailed
   monitoring of which Plaintiffs warn,” and that it is “similar[]” to the
   longstanding 80/20 Rule. The court also criticized Plaintiffs’ witnesses for
   making “only rough generalizations” about compliance costs and, in one
   instance, “wholly uncredible” claims about those costs. The court
   concluded that the “regulations may be costly, but that does not make them
   unlawful.”
          Plaintiffs timely appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
   § 1292(a)(1).
                                         II.
          “We review a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion,
   reviewing findings of fact for clear error and conclusions of law de novo.” Tex.
   All. for Retired Ams. v. Scott, 28 F.4th 669, 671 (5th Cir. 2022) (citation
   omitted). To obtain the “extraordinary remedy” of a preliminary injunction,
   the movant must show he is likely to prevail on the merits and also
   “demonstrate a substantial threat of irreparable injury if the injunction is not
   granted; the threatened injury outweighs any harm that will result to the non-
   movant if the injunction is granted; and the injunction will not disserve the
   public interest.” Atchafalaya Basinkeeper v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 894
   F.3d 692, 696 (5th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted).

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                                           III.
          On appeal, Plaintiffs argue the district court erred in its irreparable
   harm analysis. They also urge us to reach the other prongs of the preliminary
   injunction test, but, like the district court, which simply assumed a likelihood
   of success on the merits, we confine ourselves to irreparable harm. See, e.g.,
   Stringer v. Town of Jonesboro, 986 F.3d 502, 509 (5th Cir. 2021) (“As we have
   repeatedly observed, we are a court of review, not first view.” (citation
   omitted)).
           Under our precedent, the nonrecoverable costs of complying with a
   putatively invalid regulation typically constitute irreparable harm. See
   Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 1017, 1034 (5th Cir. 2022) (“[C]omplying with a
   regulation later held invalid almost always produces the irreparable harm of
   nonrecoverable compliance costs[.]” (citing Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d 405, 433
   (5th Cir. 2016))). 2 To be sure, such costs must be based on more than
   “speculat[ion]” or “unfounded fears.” Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th at 1034
   (quoting Holland Am. Ins. Co. v. Succession of Roy, 777 F.2d 992, 997 (5th Cir.
   1985)). In determining whether costs are irreparable, the key inquiry is “not
   so much the magnitude but the irreparability.” Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d at
   433–34 (quoting Enter. Int’l Inc. v. Corporacion Estatal Petrolera Ecuatoriana,
   762 F.2d 464, 472 (5th Cir. 1985)). Even purely economic costs may count as
   irreparable harm “where they cannot be recovered ‘in the ordinary course of
   litigation.’” Id. at 434 & n.41 (quoting Wis. Gas Co. v. FERC, 758 F.2d 669,
   674 (D.C. Cir. 1985)); see also, e.g., In re NTE Conn., LLC, 26 F.4th 980, 990–
   91 (D.C. Cir. 2022) (“We have recognized that financial injury can be

          2
            See also Wages & White Invs., LLC v. FDA, 16 F.4th 1130, 1142 (5th Cir. 2021)
   (same); BST Holdings, LLC v. OSHA., 17 F.4th 604, 618 (5th Cir. 2021) (same).

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   irreparable where no adequate compensatory or other corrective relief will be
   available at a later date, in the ordinary course of litigation.” (cleaned up)).
           Relying on these principles, Plaintiffs point out that the Department
   concedes that some businesses will incur ongoing costs to comply with the
   rule. That is correct. In the rule, the Department explains that “some
   employers may incur ongoing management costs . . . to ensure that tipped
   employees are not spending more than 20 percent of their time on directly
   supporting work per workweek, or more than 30 minutes continuously
   performing such duties.” 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142. 3 Additionally, Plaintiffs
   argue they produced uncontested evidence that their member businesses (all
   of whom want to continue claiming the tip credit) project precisely those
   kinds of ongoing management costs—costs, moreover, that will far exceed
   the Department’s rosy estimate of “10 minutes per week.” Further,
   Plaintiffs also introduced evidence that their members would have to
   institute costly measures to track employee time to comply with the rule and
   to defend against investigations or lawsuits.
           Curiously, the district court did not acknowledge the Department’s
   concession that some businesses will incur ongoing costs to ensure they can
   continue to claim a tip credit. See 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142 (“The Department
   . . . believes that some employers may incur ongoing management costs [to
   ensure compliance with the 20-percent and 30-minute rules].”). Nor did the
   court cite our precedent teaching that nonrecoverable compliance costs are
   usually irreparable harm. See, e.g., Texas v. EPA, 829 F.3d at 433. Those
   omissions are striking, given that Plaintiffs assert that their members will

           3
             These yearly costs would be in addition to presumably one-time costs associated
   with businesses’ familiarizing themselves with the new regime and “adjust[ing] their
   business practices and staffing to ensure” compliance with the 20-percent and 30-minute
   rules. 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,141–42.

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   incur exactly the kinds of continuing compliance costs predicted by the
   Department itself. And, of course, no one claims that those costs could be
   recovered if the rule were held invalid. See Wages & White Invs., 16 F.4th at
   1142 (observing agency did not claim recoverable compliance costs
   “probably because federal agencies generally enjoy sovereign immunity for
   any monetary damages”). The district court’s order mentions none of this,
   despite the fact that Plaintiffs argued these points in support of a preliminary
   injunction.
          Instead, the district court emphasized the weakness of Plaintiffs’
   evidence, as the Department now does on appeal. For instance, the court
   found Plaintiffs’ claimed ongoing costs “to be overstate[d]” because the rule
   does not require “the level of detailed monitoring of which Plaintiffs warn.”
   Similarly, the Department claims that the “rule expressly states that it has
   ‘no recordkeeping requirement.’” DOL Br. at 20 (citing 86 Fed. Reg. at
   60,140). Both points are meritless.
          To claim the tip credit, employers must “ensure that tipped
   employees are not spending more than 20 percent of their time on directly
   supporting work, or more than 30 minutes continuously performing such
   duties.” 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142; see 29 C.F.R. § 531.56(f)(4)(i), (ii). We
   cannot fathom how an employer could honor these specific constraints
   without recording employee time. What if an employer is investigated by the
   Department or sued by an employee for wrongly claiming the tip credit?
   Without time records, how could an employer defend itself? See Rafferty v.
   Denny’s Inc., 13 F.4th 1166, 1190–91 (11th Cir. 2021) (emphasizing the
   employer’s duty to create time records where a plaintiff claimed to perform
   non-tipped duties for more than 20 percent of her time). The rule itself
   confirms all this. Contrary to the Department’s claim that the rule has “no
   recordkeeping requirement,” DOL Br. at 20, here is what the rule actually
   says: “[T]he Department did not propose new records requirements and the

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   final rule does not contain a revision to current recordkeeping requirements
   nor does it enact new recordkeeping requirements.” 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,140
   (emphases added). Translated into English: the rule still has a recordkeeping
   requirement, and now it includes the new 30-minute limitation.
           In the same vein, the Department also claims that “employers need
   not engage in ‘minute to minute’ tracking of an employee’s time in order to
   ensure that they qualify for the tip credit.” DOL Br. at 20. No evidence is
   given for this assertion. The Department merely cites a sentence from the
   rule that baldly states, “the minute-to-minute tracking discussed by
   commenters is not required by the rule.” See 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,154. No
   explanation is given (nor can we imagine one) why an employer would not
   have to track employee minutes to comply with a rule premised on the exact
   number of consecutive minutes an employee works. The Department also
   assures us that a “30-minute uninterrupted block of time . . . can be readily
   distinguished from the work that surrounds it.” DOL Br. at 21 (citing 86 Fed.
   Reg. at 60,137). Maybe so, but that does not remove an employer’s need to
   account for blocks of employee time, especially if an employer is accused of
   violating the rule.
           Next, the district court doubted that compliance would be
   “unworkably burdensome” given the rule’s “similarity to the 80/20
   guidance, which has governed the industry for decades.” The Department
   echoes this argument. Both miss a key point, however. Even assuming the
   new rule’s 20 percent threshold is exactly like the previous 80/20 rule, the
   30-minute limit is, as everyone agrees, brand-new. 4 And it is an independent

           4
             See Dist. Ct. Op. at 3 (observing the rule “codifies the 80-20 guidance and adds a
   thirty-minute limitation on non-tipped work allowable when taking the tip credit”); DOL
   Br. at 12–13 (describing 30-minute limit as “an additional protection for workers” beyond
   the “longstanding 80-20 guidance”); 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,136 (describing 30-minute limit as
   an “addition to the 20 percent limitation”) (emphases added). At oral argument, the

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   constraint on an employer’s taking the tip credit. Quite apart from the 20-
   percent rule (which concerns the workweek as a whole), an employer cannot
   take the credit for discrete periods where directly supporting work “exceeds
   30 minutes.” 29 C.F.R. § 531.56(f)(4)(ii). Moreover, the 30-minute limit
   affects the 20-percent standard: time beyond 30 continuous minutes is
   excluded from the 20-percent workweek calculation. Ibid. In other words, the
   30-minute limitation is a new constraint on the tip credit that both requires
   distinct recordkeeping and affects the existing 20-percent standard. Neither
   the district court nor the Department explains why this new requirement
   would not impose new costs. To the contrary, the rule itself confirms that
   employers who want to continue claiming the tip credit—like Plaintiffs’
   members—will “incur ongoing management costs” to ensure employees do
   not spend more than 30 minutes continuously performing directly supporting
   work. 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142.
          Finally, the district court faulted Plaintiffs for providing “only rough
   generalizations” about their members’ ongoing compliance costs and failing
   to “provide concrete evidence, or even rough estimates of the costs
   themselves.” The Department presses these points on appeal. We are again
   unpersuaded. For example, Plaintiffs’ witnesses offered specific estimates of
   the additional time that managers would incur to comply with the rule: “at
   least 8 hours a week,” said one, “at least 10 hours,” said another—all far
   exceeding the Department’s own 10-minute estimate. Plaintiffs also noted
   the need to “hire additional managers to perform ongoing monitoring of
   tasks, audits, and correct back pay when servers, bartenders, and bussers do
   not clock in and out correctly.” Further contrary to the district court’s view,

   Department’s attorney acknowledged the 30-minute rule’s novelty. U.S. Court of Appeals
   for the Fifth Circuit, 22-50145 Restaurant Law Center v. LABR, December 6, 2022,
   YouTube, at 19:59 (Dec. 12, 2022), https://youtu.be/Z48ODelv6sY?t=1199.

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   this evidence is not “[s]peculative.” See Holland Am. Ins. Co., 777 F.2d at
   997. The Department itself estimated that businesses would incur $177
   million each year in compliance costs mirroring the ones Plaintiffs’ members
   claim. See 86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142–43. And even this figure was based on the
   Department’s “estimate” that businesses would only spend an average of
   “10 minutes per week on management costs.” Id. at 60,142 But the
   Department does not explain how it arrived at this “estimate,” and in any
   event the Department also believes the new rule requires no recordkeeping—
   an assumption we have already rejected. Nor does it matter that Plaintiffs did
   not convert each allegation of harm into a specific dollar amount. Our
   precedent requires only that alleged compliance costs must be “more than
   de minimis.” Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th at 1035 (quoting Enter. Int’l, 762
   F.2d at 472). Stringently insisting on a precise dollar figure reflects an
   exactitude our law does not require. Under the proper inquiry for irreparable
   harm, Plaintiffs have provided sufficient evidence for a finding in their favor. 5
                                        *        *         *
           Because the district court abused its discretion in finding no evidence
   of irreparable harm, we REVERSE the order denying a preliminary
   injunction and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this

           5
              We note that, to reach this conclusion, we need not rely on Tracy Vaught’s
   testimony, which the district court deemed “uncredible.” Nevertheless, the district
   court’s asserted basis for discounting that testimony was mistaken. See Dist. Ct. Op. at 9
   (characterizing Vaught as asserting “that it would cost one million dollars across her five
   restaurants to comply with the Rule”). Vaught’s estimate of one million extra dollars per
   year was not an exaggerated guess as to compliance costs; it was an estimate of labor costs if
   the tip credit were scrapped altogether. Vaught’s actual compliance-cost estimate was far
   more modest: “in the thousands of dollars.” In any event, we need not assume the rule will
   cause restaurants to scrap the tip credit altogether to find enough evidence of irreparable
   harm from compliance costs.

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   opinion. We are confident that the district court will proceed expeditiously
   to consider the remaining prongs of the preliminary injunction analysis.

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   Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
           With respect to my able brethren, I must dissent.
                                                   I.
           The recitation of the facts is accurate, but the majority falls short in
   accounting for the demanding standard of review of a denial of a preliminary
   injunction, an “extraordinary remedy.” 1 Plaintiffs must establish, inter alia,
   that they are “likely to suffer irreparable harm” 2 that is “more than
   ‘speculative;’ ‘there must be more than an unfounded fear on the part of the
   applicant.’” 3 We review a “grant or denial of a preliminary injunction for
   abuse of discretion, with any underlying legal determinations reviewed de
   novo and factual findings for clear error,” 4 “giving ‘due regard to the trial
   court’s opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility.” 5
           “Clear error review follows from a candid appraisal of the
   comparative advantages of trial courts and appellate courts.” 6 “In ‘applying
   this standard to the findings of a district court sitting without a jury, appellate

           1
               Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 22 (2008).
           2
               Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted).
           3
             Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 1017, 1034 (5th Cir. 2022) (quoting Texas v. United
   States Env’t Prot. Agency, 829 F.3d 405, 433 (5th Cir. 2016)); see also Daniels Health Scis.,
   L.L.C. v. Vascular Health Scis., L.L.C., 710 F.3d 579, 585 (5th Cir. 2013) (“[S]peculative
   injury is not sufficient; there must be more than an unfounded fear on the part of the
   applicant.” (quoting Holland Am. Ins. Co. v. Succession of Roy, 777 F.2d 992, 997 (5th Cir.
   1985))).
           4
              Topletz v. Skinner, 7 F.4th 284, 293 (5th Cir. 2021) (citing Dennis Melancon, Inc.
   v. City of New Orleans, 703 F.3d 262, 267 (5th Cir. 2012)).
           5
            CAE Integrated, L.L.C. v. Moov Techs., Inc., 44 F.4th 257, 261 (5th Cir. 2022)
   (quoting Harm v. Lake-Harm, 16 F.4th 450, 455 (5th Cir. 2021)).
           6
            June Med. Servs. L.L.C. v. Russo, 140 S. Ct. 2103, 2141 (2020) (Roberts, C.J.,
   concurring in the judgment).

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   courts must constantly have in mind that their function is not to decide
   factual issues de novo.’” 7 Thus, “[a] finding that is ‘plausible’ in light of the
   full record—even if another is equally or more so—must govern.” 8 It follows
   that “[e]ven if we disagree with the district court’s analysis in some places,
   ‘we may not simply . . . substitute our judgment for the trial court’s, else that
   court’s announced discretion would be meaningless.’” 9 In practice, then,
   “[o]nly under ‘extraordinary circumstances’ will we reverse the denial of a
   preliminary injunction.” 10
                                                 II.
           I would not set aside the able United States District Judge’s
   assessment of the record evidence: “Plaintiffs’ arguments and evidence of
   irreparable harm amount only to speculative concerns, conclusory claims,
   and uncredible assertions.” Whether I would agree upon a de novo review
   aside, the record supports its finding. As the evidence shows that while the
   new rule may have irreparably harmed some set of restaurants within the
   United States or would, in the future, engender harm, Plaintiffs did not show
   that they themselves have suffered or would suffer harm. 11

           7
             Id. at 2121 (plurality opinion) (alteration omitted) (quoting Anderson v. Bessemer
   City, 470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985)).
           8
             Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285, 293 (2017) (emphasis added) (citing Anderson, 470
   U.S. at 574).
           9
            Future Proof Brands, L.L.C. v. Molson Coors Beverage Co., 982 F.3d 280, 289 (5th
   Cir. 2020) (quoting White v. Carlucci, 862 F.2d 1209, 1211 (5th Cir. 1989)).
           10
             Anderson v. Jackson, 556 F.3d 351, 355–56 (5th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added)
   (quoting White, 862 F.2d at 1211).
           11
              See Winter, 555 U.S. at 20 (holding that a plaintiff must establish “that he is likely
   to suffer irreparable harm” (emphasis added)).

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          First, it is true, as the majority writes, that “the Department concedes
   that some businesses will incur ongoing costs to comply with the rule.” 12 But
   neither the majority nor Plaintiffs speak to the specifics of that concession.
   The Department’s analysis, as published in the Federal Register, concedes
   the rule could engender three categories of costs—(1) regulatory
   familiarization costs, (2), adjustment costs, and (3) management costs. 13
          Consider the regulatory familiarization costs. The Department only
   conceded that some businesses would incur a cost to familiarize themselves
   with the rule, requiring on average 1 hour of time to get up to speed. 14 But
   even that concession was qualified, concluding that the estimate “represents
   an average of employers who would spend less than 1 hour or no time
   reviewing, and others who would spend more time.” 15
          Similarly, the Department estimated that adjusting the scheduling of
   staff would, on average, require a single hour of work, 16 and the Department
   then qualified this concession: “the Department believes that many
   employers likely would not need to make any adjustments at all, because
   either they do not have any tipped employees, do not take a tip credit, or the
   work that their tipped employees perform complies with the requirements
   set forth in this rule.” 17
          Stepping back, because familiarization and adjustment precede rule
   implementation, there is good reason to believe that restaurants—including

          12
               Op. at 6.
          13
               86 Fed. Reg. at 60,141–43.
          14
               Id. at 60,141.
          15
               Id.
          16
               Id. at 60,142.
          17
               Id.

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   those represented by Plaintiffs and others—incurred these upfront costs
   prior to the district court’s evidentiary hearing. As the record evidence does
   not clearly and unmistakably show otherwise, one cannot say record evidence
   fails to lend plausible support for the district court’s finding of fact that
   “these costs should have already been incurred” with regard to the first two
   categories of costs. Implicitly making this point, Plaintiffs attack the district
   court’s conclusion with evidence regarding ongoing costs. Similarly, the
   majority focuses its attention to purported “ongoing management costs.” 18
          True again, the Department concedes in the published rule that “some
   employers may incur ongoing management costs . . . to ensure that tipped
   employees are not spending more than 20 percent of their time on directly
   supporting work per workweek, or more than 30 minutes continuously
   performing such duties.” 19 Frustration with the district court’s failure to
   explicitly acknowledge this concession misses the mark. The question is solely
   if the district court’s finding of fact—that Plaintiffs failed to establish that
   they would be irreparably harmed in the form of ongoing management costs
   as a result of the rule—is plausible based on the attendant record. It is. And
   it is for the precise reason that the concession does not connect these costs
   to the specific plaintiffs in this action.
          For example, the district court was within its right to credit the
   Department’s evidence that many employers would not spend time on
   ensuring compliance with the rule because their businesses are already set up
   to comply with it, 20 but for the ones who would, compliance would likely

          18
               Op. at 6.
          19
               86 Fed. Reg. at 60,142 (emphasis added).
          20
               Id.

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                                           No. 22-50145

   require ten minutes per week. 21 Reframed, the concession comes clear: the
   Department cannot promise that no business will incur a cost, which does not
   reach as far as Plaintiffs wish—or the majority accepts.
          So, too, was the district court within its right to discredit vague and
   unsupported testimony by self-interested witnesses. Consider the testimony
   of Angelo Amador, the Executive Director of RLC. Amador did not name a
   single specific member restaurant that incurred additional compliance costs,
   presumed that restaurant owners were likely paying attorneys absent a single
   invoice, and thought that the time for such training “will be like 10 hours, not
   10 minutes.” Further, Amador said, “I don’t see anybody taking 10 minutes
   in training for this regulation.” The same vagueness permeates the testimony
   of Emily Knight, the President and CEO of the Texas Restaurant
   Association. Knight attested to the fact that the rule would cause a “massive
   financial hit,” but the greatest specificity she could give was that monitoring
   costs would “be in the thousands of dollars” without any evidence to
   substantiate that number. And yet again, the declaration of one restaurateur
   similarly averred that bringing five restaurants into compliance with the rule
   would cost one million dollars per year without any documentation to
   support this assertion. As the majority writes—albeit only with regard to the
   rule—“[n]o evidence is given for th[e]s[e] assertion[s],” and “[n]o
   explanation is given.” 22
          The attestants’ omnipotence is enviable, but “[s]peculation and
   suspicion are just not any evidence at all”; 23 to establish a concrete harm

          21
               Id.
          22
               Op. at 8.
          23
               Kinnear-Weed Corp. v. Humble Oil & Ref. Co., 441 F.2d 631, 634 (5th Cir. 1971).

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                                            No. 22-50145

   sufficient for injunctive relief, “[s]peculation is not enough.” 24 Indeed, the
   district court’s treatment of Amador’s statements is entitled to even more
   weight, as he made those statements at an evidentiary hearing wherein the
   trial court had the opportunity to assess his command of the issue firsthand.
           At bottom, the majority writes: “We cannot fathom how an employer
   could honor these specific constraints”25 without incurring costs pursuant to
   the rule. Of course, and few would quarrel with the idea that no employer will
   come out of this rule’s implementation unscathed; rather, I stress only that
   the district court was entitled to insist on a far more concrete presentation of
   harms than these unsubstantiated observations—sound though they may be.
   Perhaps the harms are there, but we ought not fault a veteran District Judge
   for demanding more specificity and concrete evidence, or to at least be wary
   of its absence, particularly with such a far-reaching rule and proportionally
   far-reaching relief at stake.
                                              *****
           The district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction—again,
   “an extraordinary remedy that may only be awarded upon a clear showing that
   the plaintiff is entitled to such relief” 26—because Plaintiffs failed to make a
   clear showing that they were harmed. To my eyes, the majority yields to the
   temptation to insert its own logic to fill the void, as shown by the questions
   hypothetically and rhetorically posed. While they are powerful tools of the
   trade, the effect here is to supplant the district court’s judgment for its own, 27

           24
             Sells v. Livingston, 561 F. App’x 342, 345 (5th Cir. 2014) (unpublished) (per
   curiam) (refusing to enjoin an execution on the basis of a prisoner’s speculation as to the
   harm created by the procedures and protocols for execution).
           25
                Op. at 7.
           26
                Winter, 555 U.S. at 22 (emphasis added).
           27
                See Future Proof, 982 F.3d at 289 (quoting White, 862 F.2d at 1211).

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                                           No. 22-50145

   reasoning that because some employers will be harmed by the Rule’s wide
   net, Plaintiffs via their member restaurants will inevitably be caught in the
   seine. “Where ‘the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in
   light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse
   it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have
   weighed the evidence differently.’” 28
           The district court’s factual findings that Plaintiffs have failed to make
   a clear showing that they will be harmed is plausibly supported by the record,
   viz. an absence of evidence connecting their restaurants to the Rule’s costs.
   With respect to my colleagues, I must DISSENT. 29

           28
                June Med., 140 S. Ct. at 2121 (emphasis added) (quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at
   573–74).
           29
              Setting aside my thoughts on the majority’s irreparable harm analysis, I concur
   that the appropriate course of action is to allow the able District Judge to make factual
   findings regarding the remaining elements of a preliminary injunction. Op. at 5 (citing
   Stringer v. Town of Jonesboro, 986 F.3d 502, 509 (5th Cir. 2021)); id. at 10–11. I trust that if
   either party appeals that determination to our Court, we will afford his analysis and findings
   of fact their due weight.

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