Classic Business Group v. Preim, 3:17-cv-01710

Classic Business Group, LLC (Plaintiff) and David Preim (Defendant) had an agreement where Plaintiff funded vehicle purchases and Defendant would buy vehicles and transfer titles to Plaintiff; Defendant was paid a fee per purchase.
Plaintiff paid $105,570 for a 2017 Range Rover to be purchased on its behalf; Defendant obtained a refund from the seller after the purchase failed but did not return the funds to Plaintiff.
Plaintiff alleges multiple unsuccessful demands/attempts to contact Defendant and brings claims including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion, and seeks a TRO to freeze/return the $105,570.
Plaintiff moved for a temporary restraining order to restrain Defendant (and sought to bind Banner Bank and other financial institutions) to preserve the $105,570 during litigation.
The court assumed likelihood of success on at least one claim but denied the TRO because Plaintiff failed to show irreparable harm, did not allege facts supporting imminent dissipation or insolvency, and sought overbroad relief against nonparties without addressing Rule 65(c) security.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Likelihood of success on merits	Agreement required Defendant to return funds if purchase failed; Defendant failed to return $105,570	Dispute over facts; not extensively contested in TRO ruling	Court assumed Plaintiff likely to succeed on at least one claim for purposes of the TRO analysis
Irreparable harm	Money loss reflects bad-faith conversion and Plaintiff cannot be made whole by later damages	Purely monetary loss is reparable; no evidence of dissipation or insolvency	Money damages are not ordinarily irreparable; Plaintiff failed to show extraordinary circumstances justifying equitable relief
Balance of hardships	Funds never belonged to Defendant; freezing them is appropriate to prevent unjust outcome	Freezing funds would burden Defendant	Balance favors Defendant because Plaintiff conceded hardship from freezing and did not prove imminent deprivation
Scope of injunctive relief / nonparties & security	Requested order to restrain banks holding the funds to prevent transfer	Court cannot bind nonparties under Rule 65(d) without proper framing; security required under Rule 65(c)	Requested relief as drafted was overbroad (sought nonparty injunction); Plaintiff also failed to post or address bond/security requirement

Am. Trucking Ass’ns Inc. v. City of L. A., 559 F.3d 1046 (9th Cir.) (sets Winter four-factor preliminary injunction standard)
Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008) (preliminary injunction requires likelihood of success, irreparable harm, favorable balance of hardships, and public interest)
Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe, 794 F.3d 1039 (9th Cir.) (purely economic harms are generally not irreparable)
In re Estate of Ferdinand Marcos, Human Rights Litig., 25 F.3d 1467 (9th Cir.) (equitable relief to prevent asset dissipation is limited to extraordinary cases)