Also known as: orders for protection · protective order · protection order · restraining order
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A court order issued for good cause to shield a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense during discovery or related proceedings. The motion must certify a good-faith effort to resolve the dispute without court intervention. The court may forbid disclosure, specify terms for discovery, or allocate expenses.
Omega Energy moves for relief after opposing counsel seeks production of proprietary drilling logs in a contract dispute. The company certifies it attempted to narrow the requests through email exchanges. The court limits the scope of production to publicly filed data and shifts the cost of any additional review to the requesting party.
A prosecutor learns of a witness statement that undermines the defendant's intent but withholds it pending sentencing. Defense counsel moves to compel disclosure. The court issues a protective order directing immediate production while allowing the prosecutor to withhold only material already covered by an existing protective directive from the tribunal.
Limited partners of Orchard Farms sue the general partner for self-dealing. The partnership appoints a special litigation committee and seeks to stay the action. The court grants a protective order halting further discovery of sensitive records until the committee completes its investigation and reports whether the suit serves the partnership's interests.
Oakridge Manufacturing obtains a protective order halting a competitor's use of disputed trade secrets during discovery. The court requires the company to post a bond in an amount sufficient to cover the competitor's potential lost profits and litigation costs if the order later proves wrongful.
Residents obtain a protective order barring labor protesters from obtaining personnel records through discovery. The protesters challenge the order as content-based. The court upholds the restriction because it is narrowly tailored to the residents' interest in privacy and leaves open ample alternative channels for communication.
The Illinois residential picketing statute generally bars picketing of residences or dwellings but exempts from its prohibition the peaceful picketing of a place of employment involved in a labor dispute. It also exempts picketing of a residence used as a place of business, picketing by a resident of his or her own home, and picketing at the place of holding a meeting or assembly on premises commonly used to discuss subjects of general public interest. On September 6, 1977, several of the appellees, all of whom are members of a civil rights organization entitled the Committee Against Racism, participated in a peaceful demonstration on the public sidewalk in front of the home of Michael Bilandic, then Mayor of Chicago, protesting his alleged failure to support the busing of schoolchildren to achieve racial integration. They were arrested and charged with unlawful residential picketing in violation of Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, § 21.1-2 (1977). Appellees pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to periods of supervision ranging from six months to a year. In April 1978, appellees commenced this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Illinois residential picketing statute is unconstitutional on its face and as applied, and an injunction prohibiting defendants from enforcing the statute. Appellees did not attempt to attack collaterally their earlier state-court convictions, but requested only prospective relief. The District Court, ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, denied all relief. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.
A defendant posts statements that a reasonable person would view as threats against an ex-spouse. The government seeks to introduce the posts at trial. The court issues a protective order restricting further dissemination of the statements while allowing the defense to review them under controlled conditions to prepare its case.
Anthony Douglas Elonis was an active user of the social networking website Facebook. In May 2010, Elonis’s wife of nearly seven years left him, taking with her their two young children. Elonis began listening to more violent music and posting self-styled rap lyrics inspired by the music under the pseudonym Tone Dougie. The lyrics Elonis posted included graphically violent language and imagery concerning his wife, co-workers, a kindergarten class, and state and federal law enforcement. This material was often interspersed with disclaimers that the lyrics were fictitious with no intentional resemblance to real persons. Elonis posted a photograph of himself holding a toy knife against a co-worker’s neck with the caption I wish, after which the chief of park security fired him. Elonis posted an adaptation of a satirical sketch in which he substituted his wife for the President. The posting described firing a mortar launcher at her house from the cornfield behind it. After viewing some of Elonis’s posts, his wife felt extremely afraid for her life and obtained a three-year protection-from-abuse order against him. Elonis posted about the order and referenced having enough explosives to take care of the State Police and the Sheriff’s Department. Elonis posted an entry stating he had enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined. After park security informed the FBI, agents monitored Elonis’s Facebook activity and visited his house. Elonis then posted Little Agent Lady describing slitting an FBI agent’s throat and detonating a bomb. A grand jury indicted Elonis on five counts of violating 18 U.S.C. §875(c). At trial Elonis requested a jury instruction that the government must prove that he intended to communicate a true threat. The District Court instead instructed the jury that a statement is a true threat when a defendant intentionally makes a statement in a context wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily injury. The jury convicted Elonis on four of the five counts. The Third Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The movant must demonstrate good cause that the requested discovery would cause annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. The motion must also include a certification that the parties conferred in good faith before seeking court intervention.
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…The President entered a special appearance in the District Court on June 6 and requested that court to lift its protective order regarding the naming of certain individuals as coconspirators and to any additional extent deemed appropriate by the Court. This motion of the President was based on the ground that the…
…to $280 a month as opposed to the full California grant of $504 for a family of two. The District Court issued a temporary restraining order and, after a hearing, preliminarily enjoined implementation of the statute. District Judge Levi found that the statute "produces substantial disparities in benefit levels and makes no…
…that the Illinois Act was pre-empted by the Williams Act and violated the Commerce Clause. In addition, MITE sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting the Illinois Secretary of State from enforcing the Illinois Act. Chicago Rivet responded three days later by bringing suit in…
…He immediately coerced the victim into providing information by the threatening application of a knife. He violated a subsisting restraining order." App. 48-49. The judge adhered to his initial determination of deliberate cruelty. Petitioner appealed, arguing that this sentencing procedure deprived him of his federal constitutional…
A prosecutor may be relieved of the duty to disclose exculpatory or mitigating information when a tribunal has issued a protective order that expressly relieves the prosecutor of that responsibility.
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The court may grant extraordinary relief in the form of a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to protect the limited partnership during a derivative proceeding while a special litigation committee investigates the claims.
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The movant must give security in an amount the court deems proper to cover costs and damages if the enjoined party is later found to have been wrongfully restrained. The United States and its agencies are exempt from this requirement.
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A protective order limiting dissemination of discovered information does not violate the First Amendment when it rests on good cause, applies only to information obtained through discovery, and leaves the party free to obtain and publish the same information from independent sources.
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