United States District Court, D. Colorado
ORDER
KATHLEEN M. TAFOYA UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
Before
the court is Plaintiff's “Amended Motion for
Preliminary Injunction.” ([“Motion”], Doc.
No. 16.) Defendants have not responded to Plaintiff's
motion.[1]
Pro
se Plaintiff Safi Darrell Dona't, an inmate in the
custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, brings this
copyright infringement lawsuit against Defendants
Amazon.com/kindle, Amazon Book, and Monique Hall, MBP
Publications. ([“Complaint”], Doc. No. 10 at
1-4.) In his Amended Prisoner Complaint, Plaintiff alleges
that Defendants infringed his copyright in the novel,
“Penitentiary Gangsters, ” by publishing and
distributing unauthorized copies of the work. (Id.
at 4-5.) As relief, Plaintiff requests monetary damages.
(Id. at 10.)
On June
24, 2019, Plaintiff filed the instant Motion, in which he
asks for a preliminary injunction “for Amazon to stop
selling, dispensing, and [] disseminating authors book
‘Penitentiary Gangsters' and to stop paying authors
royalties illegally to Monique Hall and M.B.P. Publications
until after the disposition and outcome of this civil
matter.” (Mot. 3 [all sic in original].)
A
preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy;
accordingly, the movant's right to relief must be
“clear and unequivocal.” Flood v. ClearOne
Commc'ns, Inc., 618 F.3d 1110, 1117 (10th Cir.
2010). A movant must show: (1) a likelihood of success on the
merits; (2) a threat of irreparable harm, which outweighs any
harm to the nonmovant; and (3) that the injunction would not
adversely affect the public interest. Awad v.
Ziriax, 670 F.3d 1111, 1125 (10th Cir. 2012).
It is
well-settled that “a showing of probable irreparable
harm is the single most important prerequisite for the
issuance of a preliminary injunction.” Dominion
Video Satellite, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite Corp., 356
F.3d 1256, 1260 (10th Cir. 2004) (“Dominion Video
II”). Therefore, “the moving party must
first demonstrate that such injury is likely before the other
requirements for the issuance of an injunction will be
considered.” Id. If the movant fails to meet
his burden of establishing irreparable injury, the court
“need not address the remaining preliminary injunction
factors.” N.M. Dep't of Game & Fish v. U.S.
Dep't of the Interior, 854 F.3d 1236, 1249 (10th
Cir. 2017).
In this
case, Plaintiff has failed to establish a likelihood of
irreparable harm, i.e., a significant risk that he
will experience harm that cannot be compensated after the
fact by money damages. See Dominion Video Satellite, Inc.
v. Echostar Satellite Corp., 269 F.3d 1149, 1156 (10th
Cir. 2001) (“Dominion Video I”)
(“A plaintiff suffers irreparable injury when the court
would be unable to grant an effective monetary remedy after a
full trial because such damages would be inadequate or
difficult to ascertain.”). Indeed, purely economic loss
“is usually insufficient to constitute irreparable
harm, ” because economic losses can be readily
compensated with monetary damages. Crowe & Dunlevy,
P.C. v. Stidham, 640 F.3d 1140, 1158 (10th Cir. 2011).
In his
Motion, Plaintiff alleges that, in the absence of injunctive
relief, he will suffer the following harm:
Because publisher altered contents (storyline) this may cause
serious irreparable harm as these books are a continual
series and are in direct relation to one another for the
series to make sense. This would render all 4 following books
totally useless or would need years of rewrites[.] It took
[Plaintiff] 8 years to write all 5 manuscripts, thousands of
pages by longhand and may not be able to connect readers now
and future readers to this publication now released.
(Mot. 2 [all sic in original].) Such injuries, however, are
readily compensable with monetary damages. See Sunrise
Home Health Care, LLC v. Erickson, No. 2:11-CV-605 TS,
2011 WL 3240441, at *3 (D. Utah July 28, 2011) (finding that
a plaintiff failed to show irreparable harm from alleged
copyright infringement, because the damages complained of
could “easily be compensated by money damages”);
see also MPAY Inc. v. Erie Custom Comput. Applications,
Inc., No. 19-704 (PAM/BRT), 2019 WL 2099843, at *4 (D.
Minn. May 14, 2019) (“Defendants also maintain that
MPAY's harm is lost customers, which is compensable with
money damages and is therefore not irreparable harm.”);
Alpha & Omega Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Kesler, No.
18-4015-DDC-KGS, 2018 WL 5719992, at *4 (D. Kan. Nov. 1,
2018) (finding that a plaintiff failed to show irreparable
harm from alleged copyright infringement, because the
plaintiff did not provide any support for “its
conclusory allegations of damage to its goodwill and business
reputation”). Further, the injuries that Plaintiff
contends are irreparable are effectively the same injuries
for which he seeks compensatory damages in his Amended
Prisoner Complaint. See Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S.
61, 90 (1970) (“[T]he possibility that adequate
compensatory or other corrective relief will be available at
a later date . . . weighs heavily against a claim of
irreparable harm.”).
On this
record, then, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that he will
suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief. For that
reason, there is no need to address the remaining preliminary
injunction factors. N.M. Dep't of Game &
Fish, 854 F.3d at 1249.
Accordingly,
it is
ORDERED
that Plaintiffs “Amended Motion for Preliminary
...