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An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order, whereby a party is required to do, or to refrain from doing, certain acts. The party that fails to adhere to the injunction faces civil or criminal penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions for failing to follow the court's order. In some cases, breaches of injunctions are considered serious criminal offences that merit arrest and possible prison sentences.

At the core of injunctive relief is a recognition that monetary damages cannot solve all problems. An injunction may be permanent or it may be temporary. A preliminary injunction, or an interlocutory injunction, is a provisional remedy granted to restrain activity on a temporary basis until the court can make a final decision after trial. It is usually necessary to prove the high likelihood of success upon the merits of one's case and a likelihood of irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction before such an injunction may be granted; otherwise the party may have to wait for trial to obtain a permanent injunction.

In the United States, a temporary restraining order (TRO) may be issued on a short-term basis. A temporary restraining order usually lasts while a motion for preliminary injunction is being decided, and the court decides whether to drop the order or to issue a preliminary injunction.

A temporary restraining order may be granted ex parte, that is, without informing in advance the party to whom the temporary restraining order is directed. Usually, a party moves ex parte to prevent an adversary from having notice of one's intentions. The order is granted to prevent the adversary from acting to frustrate the purpose of the action, for example, by wasting or hiding assets (as often occurs in dissolution of marriage) or disclosing a trade secret that had been the subject of a non-disclosure agreement.

In some parts of Australia, a court grants an apprehended violence order (AVO) to a person who fears violence or harassment from their harasser. A court can issue an apprehended violence order if it believes, on the balance of probabilities, that a person has reasonable grounds to fear personal violence, harassing conduct, molestation, intimidation, or stalking. If a defendant knowingly contravenes a prohibition or restriction specified in the order, he or she can be subject to a fine, imprisonment, or both.

This injunctive power to restore the status quo ante; that is, to make whole again someone whose rights have been violated, is essential to the concept of fairness (equity). For example, money damages would be of scant benefit to a land owner who wished simply to prevent someone from repeatedly trespassing on his land.

After the United States government successfully used an injunction to outlaw the Pullman boycott in 1894 in the case of In re Debs, employers found that they could obtain federal court injunctions to ban strikes and organizing activities of all kinds by unions. These injunctions were often extremely broad; one injunction issued by a federal court in the 1920s effectively barred the United Mine Workers of America from talking to workers who had signed yellow dog contracts with their employers.

Unable to limit what they called "government by injunction" in the courts, labor and its allies persuaded the U.S. Congress in 1932 to pass the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which imposed so many procedural and substantive limits on the federal courts' power to issue injunctions as to effectively prohibit all federal court injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes. A number of states followed suit and enacted "Little Norris-LaGuardia Acts" that imposed similar limitations on state courts' powers. The courts have since recognized a limited exception to the Norris-LaGuardia Act's strict limitations in those cases in which a party seeks injunctive relief to enforce the grievance arbitration provisions of a collective bargaining agreement.

• stalking
• domestic violence
• harassment
• bullying (in some cases)
• Physical/Sexual abuse of some type
• the wrongful transfer of real property, also called fraudulent conveyance
• the disclosure of sensitive information in line with the Official Secrets Act 1989 (UK only)
• trademark infringement
• copyright infringement
• patent infringement
• trade secret disclosure
• tortious interference of contract
• criminal contempt
• civil contempt

• Anti-social behaviour order (UK)
• Burden of proof
• Civil litigation
• Equity (law)
• Equity court
• Gang
• Lawburrows (Scotland)
• Lawsuit
• Mareva injunction
• Protection From Abuse
• Standing

• On the Difference Between Lawsuit, a Restraining Order, and an Injunction.