Injunction Junction What's Your Function?

It's been a week since the board of aldermen went into executive session to order Lindsey Carter, acting city attorney, to file an injunction against the Lumberton Informer on behalf of city clerk, Stephanie Mullings. I haven't received my letter or notice to appear. Maybe they will give me the notice at the next board meeting, which is Tuesday, August 2, 2011. While I'm waiting for the paperwork, I thought I would share some information regarding injunctions. Injunctions are orders of a court of competent jurisdiction commanding an individual, business entity, or government agency to do or stop doing something. Injunctions invoke what is called the equitable powers of the court and, as such, those seeking an injunction must come to court with “clean hands”.(Now, that's going to be a problem for the City of Lumberton. I can't wait to defend this blog in a court of law because I will get the opportunity to get information about cancelled insurance, deficiencies in the water bill department, and most importantly, how they violated the open meeting act by discussing and voting to take action against a citizen during executive session.)
The party bringing such an action is called the petitioner (not plaintiff). The party against whom the action is brought is called the respondent (not defendant).
Injunctions are commenced by filing a petition with a court of competent jurisdiction (could be state or federal), effective service of a summons and copy of the petition on the respondent(s) by an authorized process server. The elements that must be alleged in the petition and subsequently proven by the greater weight of admissible evidence through the use of discovery are: , and payment of required court fees. (I would love to see how this fee is going to be added to the claims docket.)
1. Existence of an imminent likelihood of irreparable harm if the injunction is not issued,
2. Unavailability of any adequate remedy at law (i.e., an award of money damages after the harm has occurred will not restore the petitioner’s threatened loss,
3. The threatened harm to the petitioner outweighs any substantial harm to the respondent,
4. Granting the injunction will not contravene a substantial public interest, and
5. Petitioner has a substantial likelihood of success based on the allegations, i.e., the facts alleged are likely to be proven and are not merely speculative.

It's amazing that the aldermen claim they "don't read the Lumberton Informer" but they (Bobby Gibson, Kent Crider, Rebecca Hale and Timothy Johnson) leaped at the opportunity to start the illegal/unethical process of bringing injunction against this blog on behalf of a city employee. I can't wait to see what will come of this "injunction" and of course I will keep you informed.