Delaware Court Denies Temporary Restraining Order Based On Preliminary Injunction Standard

The below article first appeared on Aug. 24, 2011, in The Delaware Business Court Insider, here. The Delaware Court of Chancery decision that is the focus of the article was previously highlighted on this blog here.

Litigation is fast-paced in the Delaware Court of Chancery, but when a litigant files a motion for expedited relief, the pace and the complexity increase as well. A recent case, Roseton OL LLC v. Dynegy Holdings Inc., serves as a prime example.

In Roseton, the court denied a request to issue a temporary restraining order, but made its decision based on the standard applied to a motion for preliminary injunction. The time between the filing of the initial complaint and the Chancery Court's 57-page memorandum opinion spanned about a week, and the Delaware Supreme Court reviewed and denied an interlocutory appeal of the Court of Chancery's decision within another week. In total, the entire case lasted only two weeks from the complaint to the final appellate ruling.

Requests for injunctive relief are by nature fast-paced, with the irony being that the goal of injunctive relief is to bring everything to a compl ete stop. However, it is critical to spend the time to know whether you should seek a preliminary injunction or a TRO and more importantly what standard of review the court will apply to your request. The answer is not always clear.

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Read more Delaware business litigation case summaries and commentary on Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog, a blog hosted by Francis G.X. Pileggi, of Eckert Seamans.

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