Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Kenneth-Joseph Ouimet proceeded without counsel in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in No. 2:26-cv-3560 DAD AC (PS), a putative ERISA action against Engage3 Holdings and other defendants. The case was referred to the undersigned magistrate judge for pretrial purposes under Local Rule 302(c)(21), and the District Judge separately referred Ouimet's emergency motion, ECF No. 3, for findings and recommendations under ECF No. 4. The October 26, 2026 filing is therefore a recommendation under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), not a final order or denial by the district court.
The motion asked the court to order Engage3 Holdings, Inc. to produce plan instruments, preserve administrative records, and transmit the produced governing documents to Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company so that Ouimet could pursue long-term disability benefits. Ouimet alleged that his immediate injury was procedural and informational: without the governing instruments he could not know or satisfy the plan's controlling claim requirements, evaluate deadlines and limitations provisions, or present his claim under the actual contract. The recommendation evaluated that request under the standards governing emergency and preliminary injunctive relief.
The Court’s Holding
The magistrate judge explained that a temporary restraining order is an extraordinary measure a federal court may impose without notice only if the movant clearly shows, through an affidavit or verified complaint, that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result before the adverse party can be heard, per Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(1)(A). Local Rule 231 requires specified supporting documents, including an affidavit detailing notice efforts or good cause for dispensing with notice, and provides that except in the most extraordinary circumstances no TRO shall issue without actual notice. Absent such circumstances, the court construed the TRO motion as a motion for a preliminary injunction governed by Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council: likelihood of success on the merits, likely irreparable harm absent relief, balance of equities, and public interest, with any irreparable injury required to be imminent.
The primary ground for the recommendation was the absence of any identified risk of irreparable harm. The court found that the motion read more as a request for discovery than for a temporary restraining order. Although Ouimet conclusorily asserted that later monetary damages could not compensate for harm from the defendants' non-production of documents, he did not explain that conclusion, and the court was unpersuaded that any harm would be irreparable. The motion presented no circumstances warranting emergency relief, and it should be denied on that basis.
Independently, Ouimet could not demonstrate the likelihood of success on the merits required for preliminary injunctive relief. A separate screening order issued contemporaneously with these findings and recommendations had found the complaint non-compliant with Rule 8's short-and-plain-statement requirement, leaving the court unable to determine whether it presented legally sufficient claims; Ouimet was granted an opportunity to amend, but no complaint currently before the court stated cognizable claims. Accordingly, the magistrate judge recommended that the emergency motion, ECF No. 3, be denied, and advised that written objections may be filed within fourteen days after service, with failure to object potentially waiving the right to appeal the district court's order.
Key Takeaways
- The filing recommends denial of the emergency motion; it does not itself constitute the district judge's final ruling on that recommendation.
- A request framed around obtaining plan instruments and administrative records was insufficient without a supported showing of imminent irreparable injury.
- The court treated the application as a preliminary-injunction motion because the circumstances did not justify temporary relief without actual notice to the affected party.
- The separate Rule 8 screening supplied an independent reason Ouimet could not establish likely success on the merits, while leaving him an opportunity to file an amended complaint.
- Ouimet could file written objections within fourteen days after service, and the recommendation warned that failing to do so could waive the right to appeal the district court's order.
Why It Matters
The recommendation distinguishes a litigant's practical need for plan documents to administer a disability claim from the demanding showing required for extraordinary injunctive relief. It does not decide Ouimet's underlying entitlement to benefits and does not finally adjudicate the adequacy of any future amended complaint; it applies the irreparable-harm and likelihood-of-success requirements to the record then before the court.
The two independent grounds matter procedurally: the unexplained assertion of noncompensable harm failed on the emergency-relief merits, while the Rule 8 screening prevented any present showing of likely success. The separate screening order and any later district-court action on the recommendation remain important to the case's subsequent posture, but neither a final denial of the motion nor a ruling on an amended pleading appears in this filing.