Tagged: Preliminary Injunctions

Wide of the Goal: Second Circuit Says No to Soccer League’s Request for Preliminary Injunction in Antitrust Suit

Coming, coincidentally, just days before the start of the 2018 Major League Soccer season, the recent Second Circuit decision in North American Soccer League, LLC v. United States Soccer Federation, Inc. has key takeaways for antitrust and injunction law practitioners. As the governing body for soccer in the U.S. and Canada, the United States Soccer Federation (U.S. Soccer) promulgates Standards, tied to the number and location of a league’s teams, that it uses to designate leagues as Division I, II, or III each year. Major League Soccer (MLS) has been the only D-I men’s soccer league since it began play in 1995, while the North American Soccer League (NASL), despite aspirations to compete directly against MLS, has operated since 2011 as a D-II league. Last year, U.S. Soccer rejected NASL’s application for a D-II designation for the 2018 season. Rather than filing instead for D-III status, NASL sued U.S. Soccer in federal court in Brooklyn, alleging that U.S. Soccer violates Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by selectively applying its Standards to restrain competition among top-tier U.S. men’s professional soccer leagues. As part of its lawsuit, NASL sought a preliminary injunction requiring U.S. Soccer to grant it D-II status for 2018. Because NASL wanted a D-II designation without going through the usual application process, the...

Third Circuit Clarifies Focus of Preliminary Injunction Standard

Describing its precedent as “confus[ing]” and “inconsistent,” the Third Circuit recently clarified the test for deciding whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Since the 1970’s, courts in the Third Circuit have decided preliminary injunction applications based upon the following factors: (1) the likelihood of success on the merits; (2) whether the movant will be irreparably harmed in the absence of relief; (3) the possibility of harm to others from grant or denial of the relief; and (4) the public interest. However, courts differed as to how these four factors should be applied. In Reilly v. City of Harrisburg, the Third Circuit shed light on how these factors are to be weighed and, at least in part, who bears the burden on each. The Third Circuit held that a movant seeking a preliminary injunction bears the burden of “meet[ing] the threshold for the first two ‘most critical’ factors.” To satisfy the first prong, the movant “must demonstrate that it can win on the merits” by showing that its chances of success are “significantly better than negligible but not necessarily more likely than not.” To satisfy the second prong, however, the movant must show “that it is more likely than not to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief.” After a movant makes these showings,...

What is the Status Quo? How Waste Management Changed the Game in Obtaining Injunctive Relief

On December 16, 2013, in a published decision, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Waste Management of New Jersey, Inc. v. Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority clarified the standard governing interlocutory injunctions in New Jersey state courts. The court held that a trial judge’s denial of an interlocutory injunction based solely on the determination that the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on the merits constituted reversible error because “the judge mistakenly overlooked his authority to impose interlocutory relief to preserve the parties’ positions and subject matter of the suit[.]” Stated otherwise, Waste Management holds that one can obtain an injunction preserving the status quo even where he or she cannot show a likelihood of success on the merits.