Texaco Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Department of Consumer Affairs (60 F.3d 867, 1995)

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In 1986, the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO) took a small, tentative step toward regulating the profit margins of gasoline wholesalers. The wholesalers treated this move as a declaration of war. They mounted a courtroom counteroffensive and succeeded in obtaining an injunction against the enforcement of DACO’s embryonic regulation. Following a series of pitched battles that stretched from San Juan to Boston to the banks of the Potomac and back again, DACO emerged victorious.

Long after the injunction had been vacated, DACO purposed to exact tribute from the vanquished. Specifically, it sought restitution from the wholesalers based on the “excess” profits that they allegedly earned while shielded by the injunction. The district court declined to grant the envisioned spoils. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

This is presumably the final skirmish in a decade-long conflict. Other jousts are chronicled in a series of published opinions. See, e.g., Puerto Rico Dep’t of Consumer Affairs v. Isla Petroleum Corp., 485 U.S. 495, 108 S.Ct. 1350, 99 L.Ed.2d 582 (1988) (Isla III); Tenoco Oil Co. v. Department of Consumer Affairs, 876 F.2d 1013 (1st Cir.1989); Isla Petroleum Corp. v. Puerto Rico Dep’t of Consumer Affairs, 811 F.2d 1511 (Temp.Emer.Ct.App.1986) (Isla II); Texaco Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Mojica Maldonado, 862 F.Supp. 692 (D.P.R.1994) (TPR II); Texaco Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Ocasio Rodriguez, 749 F.Supp. 348 (D.P.R.1990) (TPR I); Isla Petroleum Corp. v. Department of Consumer Affairs, 640 F.Supp. 474 (D.P.R.1986) (Isla I). Given the detail contained in these earlier opinions, we believe that a condensed summary of the hostilities will suffice for the nonce.

From 1973 forward, the federal government imposed price controls on the sale of petroleum and petroleum products. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 751-760h (as amended). At the time federal controls ended in early 1981, the regulatory scheme limited wholesalers’ gross profit margins (GPMs) on the sale of gasoline to 8.6 cents per gallon. See Tenoco, 876 F.2d at 1015 (recounting history of federal regulatory policy). Although bureaucrats are reputed to abhor a vacuum, DACO — an arm of Puerto Rico’s government empowered by local law to regulate prices and profit margins in order to protect consumers, see P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3, § 341b (1982) — did not immediately impose its own controls.

By 1985, the GPMs of gasoline wholesalers in Puerto Rico ranged from 6.9e to 16.76e per gallon. In early 1986, world oil prices plummeted — but the price of gasoline in Puerto Rico (both wholesale and retail) failed to follow suit. The Puerto Rico legislature, ostensibly concerned that the oil companies were taking unfair advantage, imposed an excise tax on crude oil and refined petroleum products. In connection with the new tax, DACO promulgated an administrative order under date of April 23, 1986. The order prohibited wholesalers from passing the tax through to retailers. It also froze wholesale and retail gasoline prices at their March 31, 1986 levels.

When, thereafter, world oil prices soared, the price freeze forced several wholesalers to sell gasoline at prices below their acquisition costs. Since large oil companies are not in business to lose money, a coterie of wholesalers (including the trio that appear as appel-lees here) wasted little time in asking the federal district court to enjoin enforcement of the April 23 order. Moving with equal celerity, the district court scheduled a trial on the merits for May 21, 1986. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 65(a)(2) (authorizing the district court to “order the trial on the merits to be advanced and consolidated with the hearing on the application [for preliminary injunction]”). On May 20, DACO reshuffled the cards; it rescinded the price freeze and issued what it called a “temporary” order that harked back to the former, federally inspired ceiling and established, in lieu of the thawed freeze, maximum GPMs of 8.6