211975P.pdf   03/04/2022  Tod Tumey  v.  Mycroft AI, Inc.
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  21-1975
   U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City   
   [PUBLISHED] [Erickson, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Wollman, 
   Circuit Judge] 
   Civil case - Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In this action, plaintiff 
   alleged that he represented parties which had sued defendants for patent 
   infringement and that defendant retaliated against him by launching 
   cyber-attacks and hacking against him and his firm's computers; plaintiff 
   motioned for the entry of a temporary restraining order barring defendants 
   from engaging in cyber-attacks, hacking or harassment; shortly before the 
   hearing on the motion, plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction on the 
   same conduct; after conducting the hearing, the court issued a preliminary 
   injunction barring the conduct; defendants appeal. Held: the district 
   court erred in granting the injunction; the evidence at the hearing was 
   simply insufficient to conclude defendants were responsible for the 
   conduct at issue and, in the absence of such evidence, plaintiffs did not 
   show a likelihood of success on the merits; as to the other Dataphase 
   factors, they did not favor the issuance of a preliminary injunction as 
   plaintiff failed to show that money damages would not compensate his 
   injuries and there was no evidence that plaintiff would suffer irreparable 
   harm. On remand, the case must be assigned to a different district court 
   judge as the record shows a sufficiently high degree of antagonism to 
   defendants to warrant reassignment.