Quick Reaction Force (QRF) Litigation Team
Preliminary Injunctions and Temporary Restraining Orders (“TROs”) are the fastest way to ask a Court for immediate relief to prevent your opponent from taking further damaging action against you or your company. Our lawyer teams are constructed in a special way that allows us to turn all of our focus to obtaining immediate relief for you.
When Court action is needed now against those harming your reputation, stealing your employees or customers, taking your client list, misappropriating your proprietary and confidential business information, or misusing your trademarks, patents, and copyrights, we seek immediate Court relief by filing a Preliminary Injunction and TRO.
A Preliminary Injunction or Temporary Restraining Order is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. When a court employs the extraordinary remedy of injunction, it compels the conduct of the sued party, and does so with the backing of its full coercive powers.
A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties, including possible monetary sanctions and even imprisonment. They can also be charged with contempt of court.
An injunction can require someone to do something, like prohibiting the use of illegally obtained trade secrets. An injunction that requires conduct is called a "mandatory injunction." An injunction that prohibits conduct is called a "prohibitory injunction." Many injunctions are both—that is, they have both mandatory and prohibitory components, because they require some conduct and forbid other conduct.
Injunctions in the United States tend to come in three main forms, temporary injunctions, preliminary injunctions and permanent injunctions. For both temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, the goal is usually to compel parties to cease whatever they are doing that could irreparably change the landscape before trial – in other words an injunction has the purpose of maintaining the status quo until the court is able to decide the case.
Temporary restraining orders are a special kind of injunction that is issued immediately by a Court for a short term without notice to the other party or a hearing. A TRO will be given only for a short period of time before a court can schedule a preliminary injunction hearing at which time, evidence is presented to the Court and the Judge may continue to enforce the TRO through a preliminary injunction, or may dissolve the TRO if it does not find enough supporting evidence.
Preliminary injunctions are given before trial. Because they are issued at an early stage based on preliminary evidence, before the Court has heard full evidence at trial, they are more rarely given. If the requirements for a preliminary injunction are met, it forms a very strong wall protecting you against bad acts until you reach a trial.
