Court Opinion

ID: 9425598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:11.395823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.444525
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan concurs, dissenting.
In my view no appealable order has been entered in this case, and both the Court of Appeals and this Court accordingly lack jurisdiction.
The orders issued by the District Court are both temporary restraining orders. The first, issued on May 28 and captioned “Temporary Restraining Order,” enjoined Mrs. Murray’s dismissal until the determination of her application for an injunction. The second, issued on June 4 and also captioned “Temporary Restraining Order,” provides “that the Temporary Restraining Order issued by this Court at twelve o’clock p. m., May 28, 1971, is continued until the appearance of the aforesaid W. H. Sanders.” At no time did the District Court indicate it was issuing anything but a temporary restraining order. During the hearing on the application for a preliminary injunction, after the court indicated *98it wanted to hear from Mr. Sanders in person, the Government informed the court that Mr. Sanders was then out of town on vacation. The court replied: "Let me know when he can be available.” Counsel for the Government responded: “Very well.” And the District Court then said: “The T. R. O. will be continued until he shows up. . . . Tell the agency I will continue the temporary restraining order until the witness appears.” Tr. 10.
It is well settled that the grant or denial of a temporary restraining order is not appealable, except in extraordinary circumstances, not present here, where the denial of the temporary restraining order actually decides the merits of the case or is equivalent to a dismissal of the suit. See generally 11 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 2962, pp. 616-617 (1973), and cases there cited.
The Court holds, however, that since the temporary restraining order was extended by the District Court beyond the time limitation imposed by Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65 (b), it became an appealable preliminary injunction. I cannot agree. Federal Rule Civ. Proc. 52 (a) expressly provides that “in granting or refusing interlocutory injunctions the court shall ... set forth the findings of fact and conclusions of law which constitute the grounds of its action.” This Rule applies to preliminary injunctions, and as no findings of fact and conclusions of law have yet been filed in this case, no valid preliminary injunction was ever issued. See National Mediation Board v. Air Line Pilots Assn., 116 U. S. App. D. C. 300, 323 F. 2d 305 (1963); Sims v. Greene, 160 F. 2d 512 (CA3 1947).
Nor would it make sense for this Court to review the District Court’s order in this case as the grant of a preliminary injunction. Where the District Court has not entered findings of fact and conclusions of law under *99Rule 52 (a), meaningful review is well-nigh impossible. “It is of the highest importance to a proper review of the action of a court in granting or refusing a preliminary-injunction that there should be fair compliance with Rule 52 (a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure.” Mayo v. Lakeland Highlands Canning Co., 309 U. S. 310, 316 (1940).
It is suggested that if an indefinitely extended temporary restraining order remained unappealable, the District Court would have virtually unlimited authority over the parties in an injunctive action. At the outset, this cannot justify this Court’s reaching the merits of Mrs. Murray’s claim for a preliminary injunction. Even if the order entered by the District Court is appealable, it should be appealable only for the purposes of holding it invalid for failure to comply with Rule 52 (a). This was the precise course taken by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in National Mediation Board, supra, on which the majority relies. See also Sims v. Greene, supra.
In addition, the Government had other courses it could have taken in this case. In view of the District Court’s error in granting a restraining order of unlimited duration without complying with the requirements for a preliminary injunction, the Government could have moved the District Court to dissolve its order indefinitely continuing the temporary restraining order. Rule 65 (b) expressly provides for such a motion.1 Had the Government followed this course, the District Court could have *100corrected its error and gone on to resolve the issues presented by the application for a preliminary injunction. The end result would have been the grant or denial of a preliminary injunction, with findings of fact and conclusions of law, which we could meaningfully review.
Here, instead, we find the Supreme Court determining that although the District Court had jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief, the equities of Mrs. Murray’s case did not support a preliminary injunction, when neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals has yet confronted the latter issue.2 I do not believe this makes for sound law.
Since the majority persists in considering the merits of Mrs. Murray’s claim for injunctive relief, some additional comment is in order. I agree with the majority’s conclusion that Congress did not divest federal courts of their long-exercised authority to issue temporary injunctive relief pending the exhaustion of both administrative and judicial review of an employee’s claim of wrongful dismissal. I cannot accept, however, the way in which the majority opinion then proceeds to take away with the left hand what it has just given with the right, by precluding injunctive relief in all but so-called “extraordinary cases,” whatever they may be.
At the outset, I see no basis for applying any different standards for granting equitable relief in the context of a discharged probationary employee than the long-recognized principles of equity applied in all other situations. See Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Assn. v. FPC, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 106, 259 F. 2d 921 (1958). Indeed, it appears that the factors which the *101majority would have courts weigh before granting injunctive relief are all encompassed within the traditional formulations. The adequacy of backpay as a remedy, for example, is relevant in determining whether the party seeking relief has shown that “without such relief, it will be irreparably injured.” Id., at 110, 259 F. 2d, at 925. Likewise, the possible disruptive effect which temporary injunctive relief might have on the office where respondent was employed or on the administrative review process itself relates to whether “the issuance of a stay [will] substantially harm other parties interested in the proceedings.” Ibid.
However one articulates the standards for granting temporary injunctive relief, I take it to be well settled that a prerequisite for such relief is a demonstrated likelihood of irreparable injury for which there is no adequate legal remedy. But I cannot accept the majority’s apparent holding, buried deep in a footnote, that because of the Back Pay Act, a temporary loss in income can never support a finding of irreparable injury, no matter how severely it may affect a particular individual. See ante, at 92 n. 68. Many employees may lack substantial savings, and a loss of income for more than a few weeks’ time might seriously impair their ability to provide themselves with the essentials of life — e. g., to buy food, meet mortgage or rent payments, or procure medical services. Cf. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 264 (1970). Government employees might have skills not readily marketable outside the Government, making it difficult for them to find temporary employment elsewhere to tide themselves over until the lawfulness of their dismissal is finally determined. In some instances, the likelihood of finding alternative employment may be further reduced by the presence on the employee’s records of the very dismissal at issue. Moreover, few employers will be willing to hire and train a new employee knowing *102he will return to his former Government position if his appeal is successful. Finally, the loss of income may be “temporary” in only the broadest sense of that word. Not infrequently, dismissed federal employees must wait several years before the wrongful nature of their dismissal is finally settled and their right to backpay established. See, e. g., Paroczay v. United States, 177 Ct. Cl. 754, 369 F. 2d 720 (1966); Paterson v. United States, 162 Ct. Cl. 675, 319 F. 2d 882 (1963).
The availability of a backpay award several years after a dismissal is scant justice for a Government employee who may have long since been evicted from his home and found himself forced to resort to public assistance in order to support his family. And it is little solace to those who are so injured to be told that their plight is “normal” and “routine.” Whether common or not, such consequences amount to irreparable injury which a court of equity has power to prevent.
Nor can I agree with the majority’s analysis of Mrs. Murray’s claim of damaged reputation. It is argued that Mrs. Murray can suffer no significant loss of reputation by procedural irregularities in effectuating her discharge because her claim is not that she could not as a matter of statutory or administrative right be discharged, but only that she was entitled to additional procedural safeguards in effectuating the discharge. Ante, at 91. In my view, this analysis not only reflects a total misunderstanding of the gist of Mrs. Murray’s complaint, but also fails to comprehend the purposes behind the Civil Service Commission regulations at issue here.
The Commission provides a special pretermination procedure where a probationary employee is to be terminated “for conditions arising before appointment,” not as an empty gesture, but rather because the employing agency might be mistaken about these preappointment conditions, and might decide not to dismiss the employee *103if he is given an opportunity to present his side of the story. Mrs. Murray does not seek a hearing as an end in itself, but rather to correct what she believes is a mistaken impression the agency had about her conduct in her prior job, in the hope that with the record straight, the agency would not discharge her. She seeks to save her job and to avoid the blot on her employment record that a dismissal entails, and it is in this sense that she claims her dismissal would injure her reputation.
Whether the likelihood of irreparable injury to Mrs. Murray if she is not allowed to retain her job pending her administrative appeal, when balanced against the Government's interests in having her out of the office during this period, supports equitable relief in the present case is a question I would leave for the District Court. Because of Mr. Sanders' absence, the District Court cut short its hearing on the application for a preliminary injunction before either the Government or Mrs. Murray had an opportunity to present witnesses or other evidence. Mrs. Murray still has not had her day in court to present evidence supporting her allegation of irreparable injury, and what that evidence would be were she given that opportunity we can only speculate.

 “On 2 days’ notice to the party who obtained the temporary restraining order without notice or on such shorter notice to that party as the court may prescribe, the adverse party may appear and move its dissolution or modification and in that event the court shall proceed to hear and determine such motion as expeditiously as the ends of justice require.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65(b).

 The Court of Appeals expressly stated that it was not evaluating Mrs. Murray’s claim of irreparable injury because “any such finding ... is for the trial judge, who has not yet [decided (and may never decide)] this point in favor of Mrs. Murray.” 149 U. S. App. D. C. 256, 262 n. 21, 462 F. 2d 871, 877 n. 21 (1972).