§ 6301.Grounds for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order.

CPLR 6301 is the gateway provision of Article 63. It gives a New York court the substantive authority to grant two different kinds of relief: a preliminary injunction, which restrains a defendant while a lawsuit runs its course, and a temporary restraining order, the short-term measure that holds things steady until a court can hold a hearing on that preliminary injunction. Everything else in Article 63, from the notice rules in CPLR 6311 to the undertaking requirement in CPLR 6312, builds on the two grounds this section lays down.

The first ground looks at conduct that would undo the point of winning the case. A court may grant a preliminary injunction where the defendant threatens, is doing, or is procuring or letting someone else do an act that violates the plaintiff's rights concerning the subject of the suit, in a way that would leave a favorable judgment meaningless. This ground reaches situations where property might be sold off, evidence destroyed, or a status quo altered before the court ever gets to rule.

The second ground is broader and more commonly invoked. It covers any action where the plaintiff has demanded, and would be entitled to, a judgment restraining the defendant from starting or continuing an act that would injure the plaintiff if it went on while the suit was pending. This is the ground courts reach for in disputes over trade secrets, restrictive covenants, construction on disputed land, or any ongoing conduct the plaintiff wants stopped now rather than after a trial.

The final sentence of the section addresses the temporary restraining order: a court may grant one, pending the preliminary injunction hearing, on a showing that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will occur unless the defendant is restrained before that hearing can happen. A TRO under this section is not a final answer on the merits; it exists only to prevent harm in the gap before the fuller preliminary injunction proceeding, which CPLR 6311 requires to be held on notice. Over the decades, New York courts have layered a three-part inquiry onto these statutory grounds, asking whether the plaintiff shows a likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm without the injunction, and a balance of the equities weighing in the plaintiff's favor. That case-law standard, together with the undertaking a plaintiff must post under CPLR 6312, rounds out what CPLR 6301 begins.