Today, in a story which repeats the AP over and over again but does not attach the decision, a Federal Judge denied the application for a temporary restraining order enjoining the defunding of PP for all women's health services in Indiana recently signed by Governor Mitch Daniels, pending a hearing on a preliminary injunction application now scheduled for June 6. So far, I have not found a posting of the text of the decision but will post it when I find one.
The reasons stated in the numerous versions of one Ken Kumar article for AP and the Louisvile Journal Courier and one is attached, were that the state had had insufficient time to review the complaint in the action, and that PP had not demonstrated irreparable injury if the defunding was not enjoined pending the hearing on the preliminary injunction. One fact noted although not clearly correct, is whether the defunding act goes into effect on July 1 which is after the preliminary injunction hearing, or is now in effect.
For those of you unfamiliary with the mechanics of the procedure for temporary restraining orders and injunctions, a person who wants injunctive relief stopping someone else from doing something files a complaint, and an application for a preliminary injunction to keep the action from going forward until the complaint is decided, and then, often, an application for a temporary restraining order to keep the offending action from going forward until the application for a preliminary injunction is decided.
The one reported today is the failure of the tro. The usual standard for these applications is that the applicant must show that it is likely to prevail on the merits, and that the applicant will suffer irreparable damage not remediable by a verdict in its favor after the fact at the end of the case, and that the applicant will be more injured if the injunction or tro is not granted than the other party will be if it is.
The effective date becomes important here because if the effective date of the statute is July, and the hearing date for the preliminary injunction is June, then it becomes difficult to plead that irreparable injury will happen before the June hearing.
The second ground noted is that the state claimed and the Court apparently believed, that it had insufficient time to respond. Without having the opinion, that cannot be evaluated, as the notice time for TROs is very short and usually set by the Court in the granting of the application for it.