How To Stop ALL These Injunctions
February 12, 2025 by Karl Denninger
(c) Security. The court may issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order only if the movant gives security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained. The United States, its officers, and its agencies are not required to give security.
The Federal Government does not have to post such a bond but States and other filers do.
The amount must be sufficient to compensate the other side (against whom the injunction or TRO issues) if you ultimately lose, so if you ask for a national TRO or injunction in the general sense we're talking about millions -- or even billions. In the case of fraudulent payments being uncovered, as is currently the case, the potential damage from an injunction is in the tens of billions of dollars and the moving states must post said bond.
In the case of continuing damage during the time the TRO or injunction is in force the bond must, by the rules of procedure, be sufficient to compensate the enjoined party through the entire time the injunction or TRO is in force. If you win you get it back but if you lose its forfeit to the party you enjoined to compensate them for the damage you caused them.
Who's going to write that bond? Nobody, in that sort of amount, so they'd have to post it in cash.
Why isn't the Trump Administration demanding that said bonds be posted with all such filings? I remind you that the Executive has allegedly found tens of billions of improper or fraudulent payments in one area (Social Security) alone and the GAO claims over $100 billion a year is improperly paid through CMS -- and the latter is the government's own numbers, not DOGE's, so on its face any injunction compelling continued payments must cover at least that much times the expected pendency of final resolution.
Doing so is required by law and if Federal Government demands enforcement it ends this bull**** in an hour. No TRO or injunction, per the rules of Civil Procedure, is valid without the posting of said bond as it is required -- it is not discretionary. If the movant(s) cannot post the bond they are not entitled to the TRO or injunction and one issued with a risibly small bond or none at all is facially invalid as it does not comply with the rules under which they can be issued -- period.
Does the Trump Administration want to win or are they trying to lose?
Edwin, you have outdone yourself with this legal nugget. States’ attorneys general have been living off a free litigation lunch for far too long.
I don't understand why the executive branch has to abide by the ruling of a two-bit judge in a district court who's otherwise subject to the edicts of said executive? I have no law knowledge at all but it just seems screwy.