EMS EMS v. Board of Trustees, Utica Township Fire Protection District, Appellee-Plaintiff (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

[1] The Utica Township Volunteer Fire Fighters Association, d/b/a New Chapel EMS (“the Association”), and the Utica Township Fire Department Incorporated, d/b/a New Chapel Fire & EMS (“the Department”) (collectively, “New Chapel”), appeal the trial court's entry of a preliminary injunction on behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Utica Township Fire Protection District (“the Fire District”). New Chapel raises four amended issues ¹ for our review, which we consolidate and restate as the following three issues:

1. Whether New Chapel's arguments with respect to the trial court's entry of a temporary restraining order (“TRO”), which was, as a matter of law, superseded by the entry of the preliminary injunction, is properly before us.

2. Whether New Chapel preserved its constitutional challenges to the entry of the preliminary injunction when it had the opportunity to object to the trial court's process at the evidentiary hearing on the preliminary injunction but did not do so.

3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it entered the preliminary injunction.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] In the late 1990s, Clark County formed the Fire District in order to provide fire protection for Utica Township. The Fire District, in turn, entered into agreements with the Association and the Department to provide those fire-protection services. The Fire District levied taxes to pay for the costs and equipment that were to be used by the Association and the Department. At all relevant times, Jamey Noel was the CEO of both the Association and the Department.

[4] At some point, the Indiana State Board of Accounts conducted an audit of the Association after multiple fire trucks went “missing.” Tr. Vol. 2, p. 36. Following that audit, the Board of Accounts informed the Fire District of apparent commingling of public funds between the Association and the Department and apparent misappropriation by Noel of Fire District assets and public funds. The Fire District terminated its relationships with the Association and the Department, and the Indiana Attorney General filed a civil lawsuit against Noel and others in an attempt to recover lost public funds. Immediately after their contracts with the Fire District were terminated, the Association and the Department began selling various items of Fire District property via online sites.

[5] The Fire District thus filed the instant complaint against New Chapel in which, among other things, the Fire District sought to enjoin New Chapel from disposing of Fire District assets. The trial court entered a TRO against New Chapel and, thereafter, held an evidentiary hearing on the Fire District's request for a preliminary injunction. At that hearing, the Fire District submitted the Board of Accounts’ audit report into evidence. The Fire District also submitted into evidence several instances of New Chapel attempting to sell Fire District property online. And New Chapel admitted to the court that the termination of its contracts with the Fire District has resulted in New Chapel being “hundreds of thousands[ ] if not over a million dollars” in debt. Id. at 126.

[6] Following the hearing, the trial court found and concluded in relevant part as follows:

19. The [Fire] District has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that it would suffer irreparable harm if [an] injunction w[ere] not issued. New Chapel's ability to pay any monetary damages that might be awarded to the [Fire] District is in doubt ․

* * *

21. The [Fire] District's remedies at law are inadequate since the collection of damages by the [Fire] District appears “impossible, uncertain, or unusually difficult.”

22. The threatened harm to the [Fire] District outweighs any potential harm a preliminary injunction would cause [New Chapel]. The Association and the Department are no longer providing the [fire s]ervices for Utica Township. Preventing them from selling equipment and fixtures intended solely for the provision of such [s]ervices will not harm the[m]․

23. The public interest is served by enjoining [New Chapel] from trading, exchanging, or selling [e]quipment and [f]ixtures purchased to support the provision of fire protection and fire prevention services for the residents of Utica Township․

Appealed Order (Revised), pp. 5-7 (citation omitted). Accordingly, the court entered its preliminary injunction against New Chapel. This appeal ensued.²

1. New Chapel's challenges to the TRO are not properly before us.

[7] On appeal, we first address New Chapel's arguments regarding the trial court's entry of the TRO. According to New Chapel, the trial court's entry of the TRO violated New Chapel's constitutional rights. The Fire District responds that the TRO is not properly before us in this interlocutory appeal and was superseded by the entry of the preliminary injunction in any event. We generally review constitutional arguments de novo. See, e.g., Morales v. Rust, 228 N.E.3d 1025, 1033 (Ind. 2024).

[8] We agree with the Fire District. Assuming for the sake of argument that New Chapel can even challenge the TRO in this interlocutory appeal from the entry of the preliminary injunction, the TRO has been superseded by the entry of the preliminary injunction as a matter of law. Vickery v. Ardagh Glass Inc., 85 N.E.3d 852, 857 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), trans. denied. Thus, any issues, including constitutional ones, with the TRO “are moot,” and we do not consider them. Id.

2. New Chapel failed to preserve for our review its challenge to the manner in which the trial court held the evidentiary hearing on the preliminary injunction.

[9] New Chapel next argues on appeal that the manner in which the trial court conducted the evidentiary hearing on the preliminary injunction also violated New Chapel's constitutional rights. Specifically, New Chapel complains that the trial court set a three-hour time limit for the evidentiary hearing, which, New Chapel contends, denied New Chapel the opportunity to present its own evidence and witnesses.

[10] New Chapel had notice of the hearing and appeared at the hearing. At no point did New Chapel object to the manner in which the court conducted the hearing or ask to present evidence to the court. Accordingly, New Chapel has not preserved this issue for our review, and we do not consider it. See, e.g., Planck v. Cmty. Hosp. of Ind., Inc., 981 N.E.2d 49, 55 (Ind. 2013) (declining to review an unpreserved constitutional challenge).

3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it entered the preliminary injunction.

[11] We thus turn to New Chapel's arguments against the merits of the preliminary injunction. “It is well settled that the grant of a preliminary injunction rests within the sound discretion of the trial court, and our review is limited to whether the court abused that discretion.” Members of Med. Licensing Bd. of Ind. v. Planned Parenthood, 211 N.E.3d 957, 965 (Ind. 2023). An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court's decision either is against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before it or the court misinterprets the law. Nardi v. King, 253 N.E.3d 1098, 1103 (Ind. 2025).

[12] As our Supreme Court has made clear:

To obtain a preliminary injunction, the moving party must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) a reasonable likelihood of success at trial, (2) the remedies at law are inadequate, thus causing irreparable harm pending resolution of the substantive action, (3) the threatened injury to the movant outweighs the potential harm to the nonmovant from the granting of an injunction, and (4) the public interest would not be disserved by granting the requested injunction.

Leone v. Comm'r, Ind. Bur. of Motor Vehs., 933 N.E.2d 1244, 1248 (Ind. 2010). Failure by the moving party to prove any one of those requirements means that the trial court must deny the injunction request. Id.

[13] New Chapel first asserts that the trial court lacked sufficient evidence of the value of the Fire District's property that New Chapel was attempting to misappropriate. But New Chapel is incorrect. The Fire District made it abundantly clear at the hearing that it had expended substantial sums on certain equipment, including nearly $700,000 on three vehicles alone. The record also makes New Chapel's ability to pay reasonable financial damages to the Fire District clear, including New Chapel's own admissions to the court. New Chapel's argument here is not supported by either the record or cogent reasoning.

[14] Similarly, New Chapel argues that the entry of the preliminary injunction is erroneous because ultimately any losses by the Fire District are simply financial losses that come with a remedy at law. But the test for the remedy-at-law requirement for the entry of a preliminary injunction is whether any such remedy would be “adequate,” and, again, the record makes clear that New Chapel is in no position to financially compensate the Fire District for any misappropriated property. See id. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it enjoined New Chapel from disposing of the Fire District's property.

Conclusion

[15] For all of these reasons, we affirm the trial court's entry of the preliminary injunction against New Chapel.

[16] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The parties initially fully briefed this appeal for our review in late February 2025. However, the trial court had not entered findings of fact and conclusions thereon in support of the preliminary injunction, as required by Indiana Trial Rules 52(A) and 65(D). We therefore issued an order holding this appeal in abeyance and directing the trial court to enter a corrected preliminary injunction with the requisite findings. See G.W. v. State, 231 N.E.3d 184, 189-93 (Ind. 2024). Following the trial court's filing of the corrected judgment, the parties filed amended briefs and appendices.

2.   The entry of a preliminary injunction is an interlocutory order that is appealable as of right. Ind. Appellate Rule 14(A)(5).

Mathias, Judge.

Judges Foley and Felix concur. Foley, J., and Felix, J., concur.