civil-law florida hoa
Injunction, petition or other?
<p>A Florida homeowner association is violating its bylaws and statutes by performing action X.  Does one seek an emergency? preliminary? injunction from a judge to not perform X?  or is it a petition?</p>
<p>Assume the matter is time sensitive.  Any support in the form of a form or instructions is appreciated.</p>
<p>UPDATE: Assume the HOA action is a time &amp; materials purchase that is nonrefundable: petitioners have filed for arbitration with the state authority to enjoin the HOA to follow statue &amp; bylaw. The HOA has been notified of arbitration and is moving forward anyways: this is origin / driver of the question</p>

<h2>An <a href="https://floridalitigationguide.com/temporary-injunction/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">injunction</a></h2>
<p>However, injunctions are only granted if:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm;</li>
<li>Plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law;</li>
<li>Plaintiff has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; and</li>
<li>A temporary injunction will serve the public interest.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Obviously, you have given no details but it seems hard to see what how a violation of by-laws and statute could not be remedied by damages after the event. A purchase of something for cash is certainly repairable with damages.</p>

<p>Normally injunctive relief is a remedy within another proceeding.</p>
<p>Thus, typically, one would filed a complaint or petition seeking relief on a permanent basis (including but not limited to injunctive and declaratory relief). However, even a motion to compel arbitration together with an arbitration demand spelling out the dispute, would do as an underlying action. You normally can't make a free standing request for a preliminary injunction without some underlying merits dispute that will ultimately permanently resolve the dispute.</p>
<p>Then, in that action, one would file a motion seeking either a <strong>temporary restraining order</strong> (in matters so urgent that an <em>ex parte</em> order is necessary to afford relief, since there is no time to wait for a hearing, or because putting the the other side on notice would likely impair an effort to obtain relief), or a <strong>preliminary injunction</strong> which seeks injunctive relief pending resolution of the case on the merits following a preliminary adversarial evidentiary hearing.</p>
<p>If a temporary restraining order is sought, it is typically in effect only for a week or two until a hearing on whether the temporary restraining order should be continued in the form of a preliminary injunction should be issued following a preliminary adversarial evidentiary hearing.</p>
<p>The standard for evaluating a preliminary injunction is the one stated by @DaleM in his answer, i.e., a preliminary injunction will be granted only if:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm;</p>
</li>
<li><p>Plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law;</p>
</li>
<li><p>Plaintiff has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; and</p>
</li>
<li><p>A preliminary injunction will serve the public interest.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>The standard for evaluating a temporary restraining order is very similar to that for granting a preliminary injunction, but focuses on the harm that could arise from waiting a couple of weeks and granting a preliminary injunction following an evidentiary hearing as opposed to providing immediate relief on an <em>ex parte</em> basis.</p>
<p>Also, in the case of a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, the party seeking relief is generally required to post a bond, in an amount determined by the court, to secure relief to the party bound by the temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction for the damages they suffer, in the event that the grant of temporary relief was improvident. At a minimum, the bond is usually designed to cover the other side's litigation fees and costs involved in setting aside the temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, but sometimes it reflects other possible economic damages that could arise.</p>
<p>For example, a bond in a case seeking to prevent an HOA from making a non-refundable purchase pending litigation for a declaratory judgment determining the propriety of that purchase might often include an allowance for the HOA's fees and costs to litigate the injunctive relief (e.g. $5,000), and an additional allowance to account for the losses that the HOA would suffer if it loses a favorably priced deal (e.g. the purchase if made now might cost $70,000 while it would usually cost $85,000 if not bought in connection with this special deal, resulting in a need for a $15,000 bond in addition to the $5,000 for litigation fees for a total bond amount of $20,000).</p>
<p>A temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction generally does not take effect until the party requesting it posts the bond.</p>
<p>Assuming the case does not settle, often at the close of a case where a preliminary injunction was issued, a court will consider granting a permanent injunction. The standard for this is similar but not identical to the standard for granting a permanent injunction:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm;</p>
</li>
<li><p>Plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law;</p>
</li>
<li><p>Plaintiff was successful on the merits; and</p>
</li>
<li><p>A permanent injunction will serve the public interest.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p>Any support in the form of a form or instructions is appreciated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a type of request that would typically be unreasonable for a <em>pro se</em> party to try to accomplish without the assistance of a lawyer. There are lots of legal niceties that go into preparation of a petition and motion for preliminary injunction, including ample citations to statutes, court rules, cases and exhibits on both the merits issue and on the preliminary relief portion of the case.</p>
<p>Basically, a request for a preliminary injunction front loads a lot of litigation tasks that would ordinarily take place gradually over the course of many months of a court case and would intensify close to trial, into a couple of weeks. Filing the petition and motion and getting through the preliminary injunction hearing will often account for half the legal work involved in taking a case from start to finish for a trial on the merits. Throw in the costs of a bond (which is much easier to secure when the preliminary injunction is sought by an attorney than when it is sought by a <em>pro se</em> party) and this is pricey relief indeed.</p>
<p>Particular attention would have to be paid in a case like this one to the &quot;irreparable injury&quot; element of proving the preliminary injunction standard.</p>
<p>For example, if it is possible to obtain money damages from directors of the HOA for an improper purchase, the grant of a preliminary injunction would be improper.</p>
<p>In all likelihood that relief from board members wouldn't be available. But the motion would have to establish that point quite definitively despite the fact that this would judicially estop the person making the argument from seeking money damages down the road in the same case, inconsistently with the representations of law used to obtain the preliminary injunction.</p>
<p>All of the HOA law analysis regarding why this was improper would also have to be completely legally analyzed, supported by affidavits and exhibits, and have witnesses lined up to testify about it in an adversarial evidentiary hearing held on a week or two's notice, in what amounts to a short full fledged bench trial. This kind of trial advocacy, in addition to the legal citation heavy legal analysis in the motion for a preliminary injunction and the law heavy task of drafting the petition or complaint, are all moderate demanding and skilled legal tasks that are very hard for a <em>pro se</em> party to carry out competently. And, the individualized nature of the legal analysis of the facts and circumstances of each case makes the legal documents that need to be prepared in a case like this one not very susceptible to adapting from a bare bones form.</p>
