Originally Posted by
Affection
A preliminary injunction is judged based on the following: (1) likelihood of success on the merits; (2) the extent to which the plaintiff is being irreparable harmed by the defendant's conduct; (3) the extent to which the defendant will suffer irreparable harm if the TRO issues; and (4) the public interest.
I was thinking about this and I'm not sure that (4) applies at all here. Normally, the idea is that 1-3 apply to the
parties. So if party A is seeking a TRO against party B, those criteria look at the issues between A and B. But sometimes the public is also affected by the TRO. So (4) exists to see if the public interest is harmed if a TRO is issued (the more common case) or would be helped if a TRO was issued.
But here, "party A" is essentially a proxy for the public in general. So (4) would seem to be identical to 1-3 and thus not relevant here as a separate prong.