Alaska Employment Law

Judge Beistline distinguishes among kinds of injunctions  

After the Disability Law Center received six reports that Special Education students in a classroom had been mistreated, it asked the Anchorage School District to release the names of the students’ parents/guardians.  When the District refused, citing various statutory bases for confidentiality, the Center filed suit, and requested that information via a motion for preliminary inuunction. 

Judge Ralph Beistline denied the Center’s motion, largely because the classroom staff were not returning for another school year.  In the course of reaching that result, Beistline surveyed the various categories of injunctions.

Preliminary v. Permanent Injunction

Judge Beistline wrote:

The Court initially notes the parties’ disagreement regarding the applicable standard of review. DLC seeks an order requiring ASD to disclose the names and contact information for the parents/guardians of special needs students at Lake Otis Elementary School. DLC titles its request “Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order.” 

ASD, however, posits that DLC’s motion seeks a permanent, rather than preliminary injunction because once the information is released it cannot be recovered.  The Court agrees. This distinction is significant because in order to obtain a permanent injunction, DLC must demonstrate “actual success” rather than only a “likelihood of success” on the merits. 

A preliminary injunction is a provisional remedy designed to preserve the status quo until the court can resolve the case on the merits.  Logically, this is why a party seeking preliminary injunctive relief needs only to demonstrate a likelihood of success, rather than actual success on the merits. Here, however, DLC does not seek a provisional remedy pending resolution of the matter. Indeed, whether DLC is entitled to the parent/guardian contact information is the “merits of the case.” Therefore, DLC’s motion is properly characterized as a motion for a permanent injunction.

Mandatory v. Prohibitory Injunction

Beistline continued:

ASD also asserts that DLC’s motion seeks a mandatory, rather than prohibitory injunction. Again, the Court agrees. “A prohibitory injunction preserves the status quo” whereas a mandatory injunction orders affirmative conduct that “goes well beyond simply maintaining the status quo.”

DLC argues that since the law already requires disclosure of ASD’s parent/guardian contact information, DLC merely seeks to preserve the status quo. However, DLC’s argument assumes what it is trying to prove. Whether the law requires disclosure of the directory is what DLC must demonstrate in order to establish success on the merits. Moreover, even if the law requires disclosure of the directory, ASD has not yet disclosed it.  An order granting DLC’s requested relief would necessarily order affirmative conduct from ASD, which is the essence of a mandatory injunction. 

The Court concludes that DLC’s motion seeks a mandatory permanent injunction. Accordingly, the Court reviews DLC’s motion for actual success on the merits and heeds the caution that motions for mandatory injunctions are “particularly disfavored,”  “subject to heightened scrutiny”,  and “should not be issued unless the facts and law clearly favor the moving party.”

(Citations omitted.)

The case is Disability Law Center of Alaska, Inc. v. Anchorage School District, 2007 WL 2827532 (D.Alaska Sept. 26, 2007).

Holly Johanknecht and Megal Allison from the DLC represent the Center.  Brad Owens and Kimberly Allen from Jermain, Dunnagan & Owens represent the District.

The Disability Law Center has filed a motion to reconsider.