United States Tenth Circuit

An interlocutory order, requiring plaintiff-company to advance past and future legal fees incurred by defendant for his criminal defense, is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) although the order was not labeled a preliminary injunction, it meets the elements of a preliminary injunction and thus there was appellate jurisdiction over the matter; 2) the retrospective relief ordering the payment of past attorneys' fees could not be upheld as a preliminary injunction as the remedy is not necessary to prevent irreparable harm; 3) the prospective relief ordering future advances, on the other hand, satisfied Rule 65 and the equitable standards necessary to justify a preliminary injunction; but 4) the district court erred in effectively assigning plaintiff the burden of disproving the reasonableness of defendant's advancement requests.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/21/2009
• Published 01/22/2009

Judges

• MURPHY, Circuit Judge., Before MURPHY, BRORBY, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Kirk T. May (Charles W. German and Jason M. Hans with him on the briefs) of Rouse, Hendricks, German, May, P.C., Kansas City, MO, for Plaintiff-Counter-Defendant-Appellant., Edward J.M. Little, Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, L.L.P., New York, NY, (F. James Robinson, Jr., Hite, Fanning & Honeyman, L.L.P., Wichita, KS, with him on the brief), for Defendant-Counter-Claimant-Appellee.