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Opinion of the Court

services" of any air carrier. § 1305(a)(1). The ADA retained the CAB's previous enforcement authority regarding deceptive trade practices (which was transferred to the Department of Transportation (DOT) when the CAB was abolished in 1985), and it also did not repeal or alter the saving clause in the prior law.

In 1987, the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), an organization whose membership includes the attorneys general of all 50 States, various Territories, and the District of Columbia, adopted Air Travel Industry Enforcement Guidelines (set forth in an Appendix to this opinion) containing detailed standards governing the content and format of airline advertising, the awarding of premiums to regular customers (so-called "frequent flyers"), and the payment of compensation to passengers who voluntarily yield their seats on overbooked flights. These guidelines do not purport to "create any new laws or regulations" applying to the airline industry; rather, they claim to "explain in detail how existing state laws apply to air fare advertising and frequent flyer programs." NAAG Guidelines, Introduction (1988).

Despite objections to the guidelines by the DOT and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on pre-emption and policy grounds, the attorneys general of seven States, including petitioner's predecessor as attorney general of Texas, sent a memorandum to the major airlines announcing that “it has come to our attention that although most airlines are making a concerted effort to bring their advertisements into compliance with the standards delineated in the . . . guidelines for fare advertising, many carriers are still [not disclosing all surcharges]" in violation of §2.5 of the guidelines. The memorandum said it was the signatories' "purpose. ... to clarify for the industry as a whole that [this practice] is a violation of our respective state laws on deceptive advertising and trade practices"; warned that this was an "advisory memorandum before [the] initiati[on of] any immediate enforcement actions"; and expressed the hope that "protracted

Opinion of the Court

litigation over this issue will not be necessary and that airlines will discontinue the practice . . . immediately.” Memorandum from Attorneys General of Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin, dated February 3, 1988 (Exhibit A to Exhibit H to Motion for Temporary Restraining Order), App. 123a, 125a. Several months later, petitioner's office sent letters to several respondents serving "as formal notice[s] of intent to sue." Letter from Assistant Attorney General of Texas, dated November 14, 1988, App. 115a.

Those respondents then filed suit in Federal District Court claiming that state regulation of fare advertisements is preempted by § 1305(a)(1); seeking a declaratory judgment that, inter alia, §2.5 of the guidelines is pre-empted; and requesting an injunction restraining Texas from taking any action under its law in conjunction with the guidelines that would regulate respondents' rates, routes, or services, or their advertising and marketing of the same. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction to that effect, determining that respondents were likely to prevail on their pre-emption claim. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Mattox, 712 F. Supp. 99, 101-102 (WD Tex. 1989). (It subsequently extended that injunction to 33 other States, id., at 105-106; the propriety of that extension is not before us.) The Court of Appeals affirmed. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Mattox, 897 F. 2d 773, 783–784 (CA5 1990). Subsequently, the District Court, in an unreported order, permanently enjoined the States from taking "any enforcement action" which would restrict "any aspect❞ of respondents' fare advertising or operations relating to rates, routes, or services. The Court of Appeals once again affirmed. 949 F.2d 141 (CA5 1991). We granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 976 (1991).

II

Before discussing whether §1305(a)(1) pre-empts state enforcement of the challenged guidelines, we first consider

Opinion of the Court

whether, assuming that it does, the District Court could properly award respondents injunctive relief. It is a "basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act . . . when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief."" O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 499 (1974); Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 43-44 (1971). In Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 156 (1908), we held that this doctrine does not prevent federal courts from enjoining state officers "who threaten and are about to commence proceedings, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parties affected an unconstitutional act, violating the Federal Constitution." When enforcement actions are imminent—and at least when repetitive penalties attach to continuing or repeated violations and the moving party lacks the realistic option of violating the law once and raising its federal defenses-there is no adequate remedy at law. See id., at 145-147, 163-165.

We think Young establishes that injunctive relief was available here. As we have described, the attorneys general of seven States, including petitioner's predecessor, had made clear that they would seek to enforce the challenged portions of the guidelines (those concerning fare advertising) through suits under their respective state laws. And Texas law, at least, imposes additional liability (by way of civil penalties and consumer treble-damages actions) for multiple violations. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §§ 17.47, 17.50 (1987 and Supp. 1991-1992). Like the plaintiff in Young, then, respondents were faced with a Hobson's choice: continually violate the Texas law and expose themselves to potentially huge liability; or violate the law once as a test case and suffer the injury of obeying the law during the pendency of the proceedings and any further review.1

1 We do not address whether the District Court should have abstained from entertaining this suit under the line of cases commencing with Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), which imposes heightened require

Opinion of the Court

The District Court, however, enjoined petitioner not only from enforcing the fare advertising sections of the guidelines, but also from "initiating any enforcement action . . . which would seek to regulate or restrict any aspect of the

plaintiff airlines' air fare advertising or the operations involving their rates, routes, and/or services." 712 F. Supp., at 102. In so doing, it disregarded the limits on the exercise of its injunctive power. In suits such as this one, which the plaintiff intends as a "first strike" to prevent a State from initiating a suit of its own, the prospect of state suit must be imminent, for it is the prospect of that suit which supplies the necessary irreparable injury. See Public Serv. Comm'n of Utah v. Wycoff Co., 344 U. S. 237, 240-241 (1952). Ex parte Young thus speaks of enjoining state officers "who threaten and are about to commence proceedings," 209 U. S., at 156 (emphasis added); see also id., at 158, and we have recognized in a related context that a conjectural injury cannot warrant equitable relief, see O'Shea, supra, at 502. Any other rule (assuming it would meet Article III case-orcontroversy requirements) would require federal courts to determine the constitutionality of state laws in hypothetical situations where it is not even clear the State itself would consider its law applicable. This problem is vividly enough illustrated by the blunderbuss injunction in the present case, which declares pre-empted "any" state suit involving "any aspect" of the airlines' rates, routes, and services. As petitioner has threatened to enforce only the obligations described in the guidelines regarding fare advertising, the ments for an injunction to restrain an already-pending or an about-to-bepending state criminal action, or civil action involving important state interests, see generally Middlesex County Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U. S. 423, 431-432, 437 (1982); Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U. S. 434, 440-447 (1977); Younger, supra, at 43-49. Petitioner has not argued for abstention, and the federal-state comity considerations underlying Younger are accordingly not implicated. See Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U. S. 491, 500, n. 9 (1984); Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U. S. 471, 480 (1977).

Opinion of the Court

injunction must be vacated insofar as it restrains the operation of state laws with respect to other matters.

III

We now turn to the question whether enforcement of the NAAG guidelines on fare advertising through a State's general consumer protection laws is pre-empted by the ADA. As we have often observed, "[p]re-emption may be either express or implied, and is compelled whether Congress' command is explicitly stated in the statute's language or implicitly contained in its structure and purpose." FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 56-57 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted); Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 95 (1983). The question, at bottom, is one of statutory intent, and we accordingly "begin with the language employed by Congress and the assumption that the ordinary meaning of that language accurately expresses the legislative purpose. Holliday, supra, at 57; Park 'N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park & Fly, Inc., 469 U. S. 189, 194 (1985).

999

A

Section 1305(a)(1) expressly pre-empts the States from "enact[ing] or enforc[ing] any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier . . . ." For purposes of the present case, the key phrase, obviously, is "relating to." The ordinary meaning of these words is a broad one "to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain; refer; to bring into association with or connection with," Black's Law Dictionary 1158 (5th ed. 1979)—and the words thus express a broad pre-emptive purpose. We have repeatedly recognized that in addressing the similarly worded pre-emption provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), which pre-empts all state laws “insofar as they ... relate to any employee benefit plan." We have said, for ex

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