Otherwise Lawful Conduct Can Be Enjoined If Necessary To Protect Plaintiff's Rights
RUSSIAN MEDIA GROUP v. CABLE AMERICA (March 10, 2010)
Russian Media Group (RMG) sells Russian language television programming to residential customers. It charges a monthly fee to its subscribers and, in return, obtains programming and maintains transmission hardware. RMG filed suit against Cable America, alleging that Cable America unfairly competed with it by obtaining similar programming by fraud. The district court found that Cable America distributed programming at twenty different multi-family residential properties by pirating an individual subscriber's satellite signal and distributing the signal to other residents of the properties for a fee. RMG moved for a preliminary injunction on its claim under the Illinois Cable Piracy Act. The district court granted the injunction and ordered Cable America to stop distributing the Russian language programming at the twenty properties and to disconnect any of its receivers. Cable America appealed that order but did not comply with the injunction. It was held in contempt for its conduct. Months later, Cable America filed an "emergency motion” to modify the injunction. The motion was denied on the grounds that it was not timely, it was not a real emergency, and that the district court lacked jurisdiction to modify an injunction that was on appeal. Cable America appeals.
In their opinion, Judges Flaum, Rovner and Hamilton affirmed. The Court first rejected Cable America's challenge to the breadth of the injunction. A district court has wide discretion in defining the parameters of an injunction, particularly where there is a record of unlawful conduct. The injunction may even prohibit otherwise lawful conduct when that is necessary to ensure appropriate relief to the plaintiff. The Court noted a pattern of deception and misconduct on the part of Cable America in the district court in concluding that the court did not abuse its discretion. The Court then refused to even consider the argument that the injunction was invalid because the Illinois Cable Piracy Act was preempted by federal copyright law. Defendants never raised that argument at the district court level. Finally, the Court rejected Cable America’s res judicata defense. Although the parties did settle a prior lawsuit that arose from a set of similar facts, the facts alleged and proved in the case before the Court occurred after the prior settlement and the injunction was based on a violation of a law that did not even exist at the time of the prior settlement.
