318
Opinion of the Court
but they do contest its power to issue a preliminary injunction, and they do so on a ground that has nothing to do with the validity of the permanent injunction. And again for the same reason, we reject respondents' argument that petitioners have no wrongful injunction claim because they lost the case on the merits.
III
We turn, then, to the merits question whether the District Court had authority to issue the preliminary injunction in this case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65.3 The Judiciary Act of 1789 conferred on the federal courts jurisdiction over "all suits . . . in equity." § 11, 1 Stat. 78. We have long held that "[t]he 'jurisdiction' thus conferred . . . is an authority to administer in equity suits the principles of the system of judicial remedies which had been devised and was being administered by the English Court of Chancery at the time of the separation of the two countries." Atlas Life Ins. Co. v. W. I. Southern, Inc., 306 U. S. 563, 568 (1939). See also, e. g., Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368, 382, n. 26 (1949); Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99, 105 (1945); Gordon v. Washington, 295 U. S. 30, 36 (1935). "Substantially, then, the equity jurisdiction of the federal courts is the jurisdiction in equity exercised by the High Court of Chancery in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the original Judiciary Act, 1789 (1 Stat. 73)." A. Dobie, Handbook of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure 660 (1928). "[T]he substantive prerequisites for obtaining an equitable remedy as
3 Although this is a diversity case, respondents' complaint sought the injunction pursuant to Rule 65, and the Second Circuit's decision was based on that rule and on federal equity principles. Petitioners argue for the first time before this Court that under Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), the availability of this injunction under Rule 65 should be determined by the law of the forum State (in this case New York). Because this argument was neither raised nor considered below, we decline to consider it.
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