injunction
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injunction, in civil proceedings, order of a court requiring a party to do or not to do a specified act or acts.
An injunction is called prohibitory if it forbids the doing of an act and mandatory if it orders that an act be done. Disobedience to the order is punishable by contempt of court. Injunctions may be perpetual or temporary. A temporary injunction is normally in effect only until the hearing of the action is held, or for some lesser period; it is intended to preserve the status quo or prevent irreparable harm before the case can be fully heard.
By the end of the 14th century the Court of Chancery in England had begun to grant injunctions as a remedy for the inadequacy of decisions in the common-law courts. Often an award of damages did not fully protect the plaintiff (e.g., if the defendant intended to continue a trespass or a breach of covenant despite the payment of damages). When England’s courts of common law and equity were merged in the 19th century into one system, the new system was empowered to grant injunctions as well as damages.
Injunctions may be granted to restrain a wide range of acts: a breach of contract, such as a contract against engaging in a competing business; the commission of a tort (e.g., a nuisance); an injury to property (e.g., the erection of a wall on the plaintiff’s land); wrongful expulsion (e.g., from a club or a trade union); or wrongful disclosure of confidential information.
In the United States the injunction retains its essentially equitable character and, as in England, covers a wide spectrum of types of injurious or potentially injurious conduct. The most significant developments in the United States have been in connection with labour disputes, governmental regulation, and the protection of constitutional rights. The broadest extension of the injunction remedy has occurred in the field of governmental regulation. Many federal and state statutes specifically authorize the use of the injunction as an alternative to seeking criminal conviction for regulatory violations. In the enforcement of federal and state statutes, injunctions are sought with far greater frequency than are criminal penalties as a means of obtaining effective compliance. Injunctions have also been used increasingly in the protection of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, particularly to prevent violations of the rights of free assembly and speech, violations of religious freedom, and denial of equal rights and opportunity on racial grounds.
In civil-law countries the injunction generally has been used infrequently, except in Germany, where injunctions are used to protect against interference with property and to supplement the very weak slander laws.