3.1 Standing
Attorneys need to understand the law of standing in order to minimize the likelihood of having to litigate the issue. Avoiding a standing defense requires a careful selection of plaintiffs, thoughtful choice of claims, and specific allegation of facts in the complaint. Skillful pleading therefore, should focus not only on the merits of the claims but also on the standing of the plaintiffs to advance them. Failure to do so may result in delay of the case at best and dismissal of the case at worst.
I.A. Overview
The law of standing has its roots in Article III’s case and controversy requirement./1/ The U.S. Supreme Court has established a three-part test for standing. The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” requires the plaintiff to establish:
[f]irst ... an “injury in fact”—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) “actual or imminent,” not “conjectural” or “hypothetical.” Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be “fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Third, it must be “likely,” as opposed to merely “speculative,” that the injury will be “redressed by a favorable decision.”/2/
While the standing test is easily stated, it can be difficult to apply. The Supreme Court has observed that “[g]eneralizations about standing to sue are largely worthless as such.”/3/
The Supreme Court also imposes “prudential” limitations on standing./4/ These include limitations on the right of a litigant to raise another person’s legal rights, a rule barring adjudication of generalized grievances more appropriately addressed legislatively, and the requirement that a plaintiff’s complaint must fall within the zone of interests protected by the statute at issue.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that the burden of establishing standing rests on the plaintiff./5/ At each stage of the litigation—from the initial pleading stage, through summary judgment, and trial—the plaintiff must carry that burden/6/. Standing is determined as of the date the complaint is filed./7/ Moreover, standing cannot be conferred by agreement and can be challenged at any time in the litigation, including on appeal, by the defendants or, in some circumstances, by the court sua sponte/8/. Finally, plaintiffs must demonstrate standing for each claim. There is no “ancillary” standing; standing to assert one claim does not create standing to assert claims arising from the same nucleus of operative facts./9/
Here, we canvass the important Supreme Court cases on standing and attempt to extract useful generalizations to employ in practice. First, we discuss the constitutional and prudential requirements of standing, with an emphasis on recent Court jurisprudence. Second, we describe the Supreme Court’s most recent significant case on standing, Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, which marks a departure from a series of restrictive standing decisions./10/
A brief caveat is in order. Standing cases are very fact-specific. While the general discussion here may assist you in understanding the outlines of the standing inquiry, you will need to do specialized research in the area in which your case arises. Just as important, you must carefully interview your clients and perform other necessary factual investigation to assess precisely how your client has or will be injured by the action or policy you are contemplating challenging.
I.B. The Constitutional and Prudential Requirements of Standing
Inherent in the constitutional limitation of judicial power on cases and controversies is the requirement of “concrete adverseness” between the parties to a lawsuit. The rise of public interest law litigation involving claims of non-economic loss has forced the Supreme Court to craft an analytical framework for determining whether the requisite adversity is present. The Court requires that plaintiffs establish that the challenged conduct caused or threatens to cause them an injury in fact to judicially cognizable interests. By establishing that they personally suffered injury, plaintiffs demonstrate that they are sufficiently associated with the controversy to be permitted to litigate it. The question of injury raises two questions – (1) what kinds of injuries count for purposes of standing and (2) how certain the injury must be if it has not yet occurred.
I.B1. Injury in Fact
The following discusses several types of injuries considered by the Supreme Court in the standing analysis.
I.B.1.a. Economic Interests
The Supreme Court has had no difficulty determining that economic interests are legally protected interests./11/ More difficult is determining when economic injury that has yet to occur is sufficiently imminent and therefore likely to confer standing. The Court has been relatively forgiving in this regard. Economic injury need not have already occurred but can result from policies that, for example, are likely to deprive the plaintiff of a competitive advantage or a bargaining chip./12/ In Clinton v. New York, for instance, the Court held that New York had standing to challenge the veto of legislation permitting the state to keep disputed Medicaid funds./13/ The veto left the state’s ability to retain the funds uncertain, subject to the outcome of a request for a waiver. Yet, the Court regarded the “revival of a substantial contingent liability” sufficient to confer standing./14/
I.B.1.b. Non-economic Interests
Non-economic interests have proven more difficult for the Supreme Court to analyze. The Court has recognized that environmental, recreational, and aesthetic injuries are legally cognizable for standing, but has had difficulty in defining the circumstances in which such injuries are sufficiently concrete and imminent to confer standing. Sierra Club v. Morton, for example, arose from a challenge to a decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior to license the construction of a ski resort./15/ The Club claimed that the license agreement was illegal and asserted standing based upon its long-standing interest in, and concern for, the protection of the environment and its experience in environmental litigation. The Club did not plead that it or its members would suffer any adverse consequence by virtue of the license agreement. Acknowledging that loss of recreational opportunities or aesthetic enjoyment may be cognizable injuries, the Court held that the Club failed to plead any cognizable injury and it, therefore, lacked standing to litigate the legality of the agreement. On remand to the district court, the Club amended the complaint to allege that its members would suffer such injuries and ultimately succeeded in blocking the development./16/
Sierra Club is significant both for what it permits and what it prohibits. By recognizing that non-economic injury suffices for injury in fact, Sierra Club loosened the requirement of injury in fact. By holding that a specialized interest in a particular issue may not give rise to injury sufficient to challenge unlawful conduct, Sierra Club precluded citizen suits to enforce the law. Subsequent cases expanded these principles.
Sierra Club offers useful advice to lawyers concerned about potential standing problems. Identify in the complaint the injury about which you complain as precisely as possible. When the injury is not economic, plead every effect of the challenged action upon the plaintiff. Do not omit a potential theory of injury. When pleading standing, forget modern notions of notice pleading; plead facts and plead them in detail. Doing so may prevent wasted time in briefing a motion to dismiss and a delayed resolution of the case.
United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP) represents the high watermark of environmental standing./17/ In SCRAP, the Supreme Court held that a student organization assembled for the purpose of litigation had standing to challenge the Interstate Commerce Commission’s approval of increased rail freight rates that would increase the cost of recycling scrap metal. The students claimed to suffer aesthetic injury when using parks and to suffer injury when breathing polluted air as a result of less recycling. Even though the injuries would generally be suffered by virtually everyone and the connection between the challenged policy and the claimed injuries was highly attenuated, the Court found standing. The Court, however, has made it subsequently clear that SCRAP lies at the very margin of standing doctrine, if not beyond./18/
The Supreme Court recognized the role of carefully pleading injury in Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group/19/. Organizations and individuals who lived close to a planned nuclear power plant challenged the constitutionality of federal legislation capping the potential liability of a plant operator for a nuclear disaster. Plaintiffs alleged that, absent the liability cap, the plant could not profitably be built, thereby tying the harm that would result from construction of the plant to the liability cap. Plaintiffs claimed that use of two local lakes to produce steam and to cool the reactor would release small amounts of non-natural radiation and would cause a “sharp increase” in water temperature, which in turn would harm their interest in the recreational use of the lakes./20/ Relying upon Sierra Club and SCRAP, the Court held that the injuries were sufficient to confer standing. The Court also held that the plaintiffs satisfied the causation and redressability requirements for standing, discussed below.
Since Duke Power, the Court has been less receptive to claims of environmental standing. In Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, for example, the plaintiffs challenged the Interior Department’s efforts to review and classify hundreds of parcels of public lands in a manner that might have resulted in their use for mining./21/ Relying on affidavits, plaintiffs claimed injury to their recreational and aesthetic enjoyment of lands in the vicinity of public lands that had been opened to mining and oil and gas leasing claims. The Court rejected standing. The public lands at issue were massive tracts of land, only a small portion of which were subject to the challenged decisions. The Court held that an interest in lands that simply lay in the vicinity of areas subject to development was inadequate.
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife involved a provision in the Endangered Species Act that required federal agencies to consult with the Interior Department to make sure that any programs authorized or funded by the agency do not affect endangered species./22/ In Defenders of Wildlife, plaintiff organizations and individuals challenged an Interior Department regulation that had the effect of limiting the consultative scope of the Act to projects undertaken only within the United States rather than abroad. Plaintiffs alleged that reducing this consultative arrangement would increase the rate of extinction of endangered species overseas. Again, the Supreme Court recognized that a desire to observe animals was a cognizable interest, but held that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they “would thereby be ‘directly’ affected apart from their ‘special interest’ in th[e] subject.”/23/ Affiants claimed only that they had visited the habitats of endangered species abroad and intended to revisit them. The Court observed that “[s]uch ‘some day’ intentions—without any description of concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the some day will be—do not support a finding of the ‘actual or imminent’ injury that our cases require.’”/24/
Defenders of Wildlife offers lessons to advocates in selecting plaintiffs and pleading facts related to injury. A comparison of National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife with Friends of the Earth, discussed infra, is instructive in this regard. Unlike plaintiffs in National Wildlife Federation, the Friends of the Earth plaintiffs alleged direct injury from the pollutants in question to the particular area in which they wished to recreate./25/ Unlike plaintiffs in Defenders of Wildlife, the plaintiffs in Friends of the Earth alleged that they would use the river without the discharges, not that they might someday do so./26/ Friends of the Earth suggests that the Court remains receptive to finding injury in fact in environmental cases where plaintiffs are able to allege a clear wish to avail themselves of recreational or aesthetic opportunities in a particular, proximate area, but assert that they had not done so because of reasonable concern of harm.
I.B.1.c. Injuries to Statutory Rights
Statutory rights can create the cognizable legal interest required for standing, but Defenders of Wildlife seemed to place limits on this general principle. A majority of the Court found the “citizen suit” provision of the Endangered Species Act unconstitutional./27/ The Act permitted “any person” to obtain judicial review of agency action that is alleged to violate the Act. The plurality opinion, authored by Justice Scalia, recognized that the Court had frequently held that “[t]he ... injury required by Art. III may exist solely by virtue of ‘statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates standing.’”/28/ However, relying on the line of “generalized grievance” cases, Justice Scalia stated that Congress could recognize cognizable injuries by statute but could not dispense with the concrete-injury requirement. Justices Kennedy and Souter joined this holding, forming a majority, on slightly narrower grounds. They noted that “Congress must, at the very least, identify the injury it seeks to vindicate and relate the injury to the class of persons entitled to bring suit.”/29/ That was something the citizen-suit provision of the Act failed to do.
In so holding, the Supreme Court did not purport to overturn a line of cases arising under the Fair Housing Act of 1968./30/ In those cases, the Court held that Congress may create by statute a right, the deprivation of which constitutes the injury in fact necessary for standing, even when the plaintiff would have suffered no judicially cognizable injury without the statute. In Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., cited with apparent approval in Defenders of Wildlife, the Court held that Congress created a right to be free from the effects of racially discriminatory housing practices directed at others./31/ Thus, white residents of an apartment complex had standing to challenge the exclusion of black rental applicants because they suffered the loss of the benefits of life in an integrated community./32/ Defenders of Wildlife would suggest that such antidiscrimination laws can create new cognizable injuries, but that such statutes can permit only those particularly and concretely suffering such injuries to enforce these laws./33/
I.B.1.d. Procedural Injury
The Supreme Court has addressed an additional form of injury—other than economic, recreational, and aesthetic injury—of potential value to legal aid attorneys. In Defenders of Wildlife, plaintiffs sought standing on the ground that the Act in question created a procedural right in the form of interagency consultation that was allegedly violated. The Court rejected the view that anyone could have standing to assert this abstract “procedural right.”/34/ The Court did, however, note that “‘procedural rights’ are special: the person who has been accorded a procedural right to protect his concrete interest can assert that right without meeting all the normal standards for redressability and immediacy.”/35/ Plaintiffs have, in short, standing to challenge the alleged violation of procedures so long as the procedures are designed to protect some concrete substantive interest./36/ Otherwise, the claim of standing is regarded as nothing more than a generalized interest in the government’s compliance with laws./37/ For an argument explaining and applying this form of standing, see the Documentary Supplement, Document 8, Argument II.C.1.
I.B.2. Distinct and Palpable Injury
One of the goals of public law litigation is to force the government to comply with the Constitution and federal statutes. In the absence of more specific injuries, litigants have claimed that the Constitution confers upon all citizens the right to a lawful government and upon all federal taxpayers the right not to be taxed to support unlawful governmental activity. In a largely unbroken line of cases, the Supreme Court has refused to permit litigation of these so-called citizen suits and taxpayer suits./38/
In United States v. Richardson/39/ and Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War/40/, the Court held that injury resulting from the allegedly unlawful invalid expenditure of tax monies did not confer standing because of the “‘comparatively minute, remote, fluctuating and uncertain’ impact on the taxpayer.”/41/ With respect to the interest of citizens in lawful government, the Court repeatedly characterized the injury to plaintiffs as citizens as “remote,” “abstract,” “generalized,” and “undifferentiated,” rather than “concrete.” Because of this, the Court has held that this “motivation [to enforce the Constitution] is not a substitute for the actual injury” required for standing./42/
The Court expounded on these principles in Warth v. Seldin, where the Court coined the phrase “distinct and palpable injury” to capture the requirement that plaintiffs must plead more than a generalized or undifferentiated grievance against the government./43/ “Distinct” generally means that the challenged act or policy affects the plaintiff differently from citizens at large. “Palpable” means that the resulting injury is concrete and not abstract or hypothetical. The Court explained in Warth that the prohibition against citizen standing and taxpayer standing did not derive from Article III. Rather, the requirements that a plaintiff suffer a distinct and palpable injury are “essentially matters of judicial self-governance.”/44/ Thus, while the requirement of injury in fact is rooted in Article III, the requirement that the injury be distinct and palpable is a prudential limitation on standing created to effectuate the separation of powers. Because the requirement is prudential, Congress can dispense with it./45/
Allen v. Wright culminated the demise of both citizen standing and taxpayer standing./46/ Parents of African American public school children, residing in school districts undergoing desegregation, challenged the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) failure to deny tax-exempt status to discriminatory private schools in their respective districts. Plaintiffs did not allege that their children wished to attend these private schools. Rather, the parents alleged that governmental financial assistance to discriminatory schools both harmed them and impaired their ability to have the public schools desegregated. Treating the former claim as an abstract allegation that the government stigmatized African American citizens by subsidizing race discrimination, the Court held that the claim did not state a distinct and palpable injury./47/ The Court found that stigmatic injury “accords a basis for standing only to ‘those persons who are personally denied equal treatment’ by the challenged discriminatory conduct.”/48/
Nonetheless, the Court has sometimes found standing based upon claims of injury that can be described only as generalized or abstract. In F.E.C. v. Akins, for example, voters challenged a decision by the Federal Election Commission that a particular organization was not a “political committee.”/49/ Political committees must make certain disclosures to the commission; those disclosures, in turn, may be made public. The Court found that plaintiff voters had standing because the voters were not afforded access to information that might assist them in casting their vote, even though all voters could have claimed the same thing./50/ Akins might be justified on the grounds that the right of information at issue was statutorily created and that a statute gave “aggrieved” parties a right to challenge the FEC decision. That would put Akins closer to Trafficante than Defenders of Wildlife, discussed above. For an argument applying these principles of standing, see the Documentary Supplement, Document 8, Argument II.C.2.
I.B.3. Injury Fairly Traceable to the Challenged Conduct
In addition to alleging injury in fact, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s unlawful conduct. In cases in which the government acts against the plaintiff, causation is simple. When, however, governmental action or inaction relates to third parties or only indirectly affects the plaintiff, then the question becomes whether the causal connection between action and injury is sufficient to confer standing. The Supreme Court has found standing in some cases notwithstanding an attenuated or uncertain chain of causation./51/ At the same time, the Court has denied standing in cases in which the chain seemed both shorter and more certain./52/ The Court’s standing causation jurisprudence has been markedly inconsistent and offers few lessons for general application.
The Court first articulated the requirements of causation and redressability in Linda R.S. v. Richard D./53/ Plaintiff, an unmarried mother, sued to compel a local prosecutor to enforce the state’s criminal nonsupport statute against the father of her child. She asserted that her injury was the refusal of the child’s father to provide support and claimed the state’s refusal to enforce the statute against unmarried fathers violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that the mother lacked standing because she did not show that enforcement or threat of enforcement of the statute would cause the father to make child support payments.”/54/ There was, in short, an insufficient showing that the state’s enforcement policy was the cause of her injury: the non-receipt of child support.
In Warth, low-income plaintiffs who wished to reside in Penfield, New York, challenged zoning restrictions that effectively precluded the construction of low and moderate-income housing within the city. The Court held that the individual plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to “allege facts from which it reasonably could be inferred that, absent the [city’s] restrictive zoning practices, there is a substantial probability that they would have been able to purchase or lease in Penfield.”/55/ The ability to purchase a home in Penfield turned on both the willingness of the developer to build homes there without the restrictions and the plaintiffs’ financial capability to do so. Both were regarded as too speculative. Because the plaintiffs failed to establish that city zoning practices caused their injury, they were not allowed to challenge those practices.
By contrast, the Court later held in Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. that a developer of low-income housing and one of its putative tenants had standing to challenge exclusionary zoning practices./56/ The developer had contracted to buy property contingent upon its rezoning for multiple family use and filed a properly documented rezoning application. When the city denied the rezoning application, the developer sued. Although financing for the project was uncertain, the Court held that the developer had standing to challenge the city’s action because an injunction would remove a barrier to development./57/ The individual plaintiff alleged that he would seek and qualify for housing in the proposed development in order to move closer to his job. Finding that the city’s action frustrated the individual plaintiff’s specific plan and that an injunction would create at least a “substantial possibility” of development, the Court concluded that he too had standing./58/
Plaintiffs in Arlington Heights overcame standing problems by paying attention to detail. Rather than mount an abstract challenge to exclusionary zoning practices on behalf of developers who hoped to develop at some future time and tenants who hoped to rent somewhere, they identified a developer and an individual with specific injuries more closely traceable to city action. Because they pled a commitment to act if relief were granted, these plaintiffs also established a greater likelihood of redressability. By recognizing from the outset the importance of establishing that exclusionary zoning caused the inability to develop or to rent, they overcame the Warth obstacle. Arlington Heights represents a wise response to Warth: to identify with precision the injury and demonstrate the link between the injury and official action./59/
Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization also demonstrates the hazards of filing a suit without giving due regard to standing./60/ In that case, various individuals and organizations challenged an IRS Revenue Ruling which permitted some hospitals to deny admission to non-emergency indigent patients without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status. Plaintiffs each claimed to have been denied hospital treatment because of their indigence and asserted that the revised revenue ruling “encouraged” and “was encouraging” the continued denial of treatment. Plaintiffs pled that each of the hospitals was tax-exempt and received substantial private contributions.
The Court held that the plaintiffs failed to establish that the denial of treatment was fairly traceable to the revised revenue ruling. The Court reasoned that, in the absence of evidence, “[i]t is purely speculative whether the denials of service . . . fairly can be traced to [IRS] ‘encouragement’ or instead result from decisions made by the hospitals without regard to the tax implications.”/61/ The message of Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization for lawyers today is clear: when preparing a challenge to unlawful governmental activity that indirectly harms your clients, plead in detail the causal link between the illegal conduct and the plaintiffs’ injury. Arlington Heights and Duke Power are models of how to overcome the Court’s tightened causation requirement.
I.B.4. Relief Sought to Redress Injury
A corollary to the Supreme Court’s requirement for standing—that the injury alleged be fairly traceable to the challenged conduct—is the separate requirement that the relief sought must redress the injury. In the great majority of cases the inquiry into causation and redressability are indistinguishable. Thus, in Warth the Court held that there was no reason to suppose that the elimination of exclusionary zoning would enable the plaintiffs to obtain housing in Penfield. In Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, the Court held that there was no reason to suppose that revoking the IRS Revenue Ruling at issue would assure the next ill or injured poor person would be admitted to a hospital. Furthermore, in Allen, the Court held it was entirely speculative that revoking tax-exempt status for allegedly discriminatory private schools would serve to foster public school integration. What is peculiar about the Court’s concern for redressability is the elevation of the question of remedial efficacy to constitutional status.
While the scope of equitable relief to redress unlawful governmental action has long been a matter of controversy, not until City of Los Angeles v. Lyons did the Court clearly articulate the requirement of remedial efficacy as a constitutional component of standing./62/ The plaintiff in Lyons sought damages and injunctive relief after being choked by city police officers. He alleged that the city permitted the police department to use unnecessary choke holds indiscriminately. The Court conceded that Lyons had standing to sue for damages./63/ However, the Court held that he lacked standing to seek injunctive relief. An injunction would not redress his injury because it was unlikely that he would be arrested and choked again.
Lyons differs dramatically from Warth and Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization. In the earlier cases, the Court’s concern for remedial efficacy was a corollary to the requirement that the plaintiff establish that the injury was fairly traceable to defendant’s unlawful conduct. If the causal link between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury was tenuous, then it followed that injunctive relief against that conduct was unlikely to remedy the injury. Thus, the requirement of remedial efficacy grew out of the focus upon causation; whenever causation was in doubt, so too was remedial efficacy.
The notion of uncertainty in redressability arose in a different context in Defenders of Wildlife. In that case, again, plaintiffs challenged a regulation that did not require funding agencies to consult with the government before granting funds to projects that might harm endangered species. The Court found that plaintiffs had not demonstrated redressability because the funding agencies were not otherwise bound by any consultation requirement and because the funding agencies supplied only a small percentage of the financing for certain projects./64/ Even if those funds were withdrawn, the plaintiffs did not show that the project would be suspended or cause less harm to the endangered species, a showing that would be formidable, if not impossible.
The ability of prospective injunctive relief to remedy past wrongs dealt with in Lyons has echoes in Steel Company v. Citizens for a Better Environment./65/ In Steel Company, plaintiff sued a manufacturing firm for past violations of a federal statute requiring users of certain toxic and hazardous chemicals to file forms with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that detail the name, quantity, and disposal methods of various chemicals. The EPA alerted the firm that it had failed to file the forms for several years. The firm then did so. Suing the firm for violating the statute, plaintiff asserted that the company’s failure to file these forms precluded plaintiff from learning about its operations. Plaintiff sought declaratory, injunctive relief and civil penalties.
The Court found that plaintiff failed the redressability prong of the standing test. With respect to injunctive relief, plaintiff sought an order permitting plaintiff to inspect the firm’s facilities and records and requiring the firm to submit future forms to the EPA. The Court held that such relief would not redress the injury previously caused when the firm failed to file the forms. Plaintiff did not allege that such a violation was going to happen again, and, without it, there was no basis for prospective injunctive relief.
The clear message of Lyons and Steel Company is to choose plaintiffs with care and, whenever possible, to choose plaintiffs who have suffered recurrent application of the practice or policy at issue. In preparing a claim seeking injunctive relief based upon past conduct, the attorney must therefore articulate in the complaint the reasons why the risk of recurrence is more than speculative.
I.C. A Theory of Standing and Friends of the Earth
The Supreme Court’s most recent standing decision, Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, involved standing under the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act. That provision authorizes the federal courts to hear actions for injunctive relief and civil penalties by “a person or persons having an interest which is or may be adversely affected.”/66/ Laidlaw received a permit to discharge certain pollutants into a river but repeatedly exceeded those limits. South Carolina sued Laidlaw and quickly settled for $100,000 in civil penalties and a promise to comply with the permit. Friends of the Earth subsequently filed suit, seeking additional civil penalties and injunctive relief. The issue before the Court was whether plaintiffs had standing to seek civil penalties after Laidlaw had indeed complied with the discharge permit.
The Court’s decision in Friends of the Earth relaxed each of the standing requirements: injury in fact, causation, and redressability. The Court held that plaintiffs had established injury in fact and causation through affidavits and deposition testimony that detailed their desire to recreate on the nearby river and to enjoy its aesthetic beauty, but their hesitance to do so because of the pollution. The Court did not require the plaintiffs to demonstrate that particular discharges had caused them injury. Rather, the Court found it sufficient that the discharges generally created “reasonable concerns” about their effects and that these concerns directly and reasonably affected plaintiffs’ recreational and aesthetic interests./67/
With regard to redressability, the Court rejected the notion that plaintiffs lacked standing simply because the penalty was to be paid to the government rather than to them. The Court deferred to Congress’ judgment that civil penalties deter unlawful conduct. Because civil penalties discourage violators from continuing their misconduct and deter future violations, plaintiffs would achieve redress even though they would not pocket the money./68/
In Professor Richard Pierce’s view, Friends of the Earth can be explained because the case arose from a suit filed pursuant to a specific federal statute./69/ Such statutes evidence a legislative judgment that certain classes of plaintiffs suffer injury in fact when the statute is violated, that the violation causes the injury, and that such injury is redressable by the statutory remedies provided. These statutes also explicitly reflect Congress’ desire that courts intervene to resolve disputes arising from the statutes. As the Court recently put it, “Congress [can] define new legal rights, which in turn will confer standing to vindicate an injury caused to the claimant.”/70/ With the exception of Defenders of Wildlife, the Court found standing in each case arising from such statutes.
When, however, the action does not arise from such statutes and there is no explicit legislative mandate for intervention, the Court takes a much narrower view of standing. This is particularly true, according to Professor Pierce, in cases involving questions that pose challenges to the judicial function when standards of decision are not readily available or discernible./71/
I.D. Associational Standing
Groups may have standing in a representative capacity, in an individual capacity, or in both. A group has standing in a representative capacity when it represents the rights of its members. Such standing is an exception to the general prohibition on third-party standing. An association has standing in an individual capacity (or qua group) when it asserts its own rights as an organization.
I.D.1. Representative Capacity
The leading case articulating the standing requirements for groups that sue in a representative capacity is Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Commission./72/ The Court stated in Hunt:
Thus we have recognized that an association has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members when:
(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right;
(b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and
(c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit./73/
The first prong of the Hunt test establishes a traditional standing inquiry grounded in Article III’s case or controversy requirement. The second prong is also constitutionally based and is designed to ensure that the association has both a concrete stake in the outcome of the litigation and will approach it with adversarial vigor. In contrast, the Supreme Court ruled, the third prong is a prudential limitation in the same sense as is third-party standing (see infra)./74/
With respect to the first element, when an organization asserts standing in a representative capacity, Hunt does not require the organization to allege that it has suffered any injury. Rather, the organization must establish that those whom it represents have suffered an injury sufficient to confer standing./75/ The organization need not establish that a substantial number of its members have suffered injury. Injury to a single member will do./76/
An issue commonly litigated relating to the first prong is whether the plaintiff is the sort of association entitled to avail itself of associational standing. Voluntary membership organizations, such as trade organizations, plainly qualify./77/ Organizations whose members are compelled to join, such as some trade unions and bar associations, may qualify as well./78/ Matters become more difficult when the association is not a traditional membership organization. The association may have standing if the association is “the functional equivalent of a traditional membership organization.”/79/ That is, if the individuals in the organization select its leaders, guide its activities, and finance its efforts, the association may have standing./80/ If not, the association lacks standing./81/
Second, Hunt also requires some community of interest between the group and the injured member. By requiring the interests that the suit seeks to protect to be germane to the organization’s purpose, Hunt limits the capacity of groups to define their purpose in terms sufficiently broad to permit the group to represent whoever’s interests happen to suit it at a given moment./82/ This requirement has been described as “undemanding.”/83/
Third, Hunt permits representative standing only when neither the claim nor the relief sought require the participation of an injured individual. This element is typically satisfied when the plaintiff association seeks injunctive or declaratory relief generally benefiting the association and its members,/84/ even when there is a need for some association members to participate in fact discovery or at trial./85/ The application of the third prong in cases with a conflict among an association’s membership resulted in an interesting split in the circuits./86/ Unless Congress eliminates the third element of the Hunt test by statutorily authorizing suit for damages,/87/ associational claims for damages run afoul of this third prong because the claims require individualized proof of damage and representative standing is therefore inappropriate./88/ Because Hunt vests trial courts with some discretion in resolving claims of associational standing, the better practice when group standing appears tenuous is to join at least one named individual as plaintiff in litigation brought by a group asserting associational standing. The presence of an individual with standing should discourage the court—and opposing counsel—from delving deeply into the question of the group’s associational standing.
I.D.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Associational Standing
Given that a group asserting representative standing will fare no better than its individual members in establishing the requisite injury, one can fairly ask why associational standing is worth pursuing. The principal advantage of group standing lies in its use to obtain the benefits of a class action without the bother of class certification. Those benefits include the opportunity to obtain a judgment in favor of everyone adversely affected and to avoid mootness.
Including a representative organization as a plaintiff may justify broader relief than would otherwise be available in a single plaintiff action. It also may avoid mootness questions tied to the passing stake in the controversy of individual members. Representative claims thereby effectively shift the case and controversy focus from whether a particular individual has a live claim to whether any group member has a live claim. In this sense, representative standing resembles a class action without the problems posed by the requirement of class certification.
Indeed, the Supreme Court recognized the propriety of representative group standing as an appropriate alternative to class action litigation for injunctive relief in International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Workers./89/ In that case the government argued that the Court should modify Hunt to require representative groups to proceed under Rule 23. Rejecting that argument, the Court reaffirmed Hunt. Representative groups, the Court held, may be superior to an “ad hoc union of injured plaintiffs” proceeding as a class action./90/ Because associations are often borne of a desire to vindicate common interests, they are likely to be adequate representatives of their members and “can draw upon a preexisting reservoir of expertise and capital.”/91/ The Court’s reaffirmation of associational standing suggests the potential value of such standing as an alternative to the vagaries of class certification.
Representative group standing also may enable an individual member who does not wish to appear as a named plaintiff, or does not have the resources to do so, to avoid direct participation in the lawsuit. For a variety of reasons, some individuals are reluctant to sue in their own name. However, their membership in a group can confer representative standing on the group. On the other hand, damages are not available in cases involving associational standing.
An organization may also see representative group standing as a device to strengthen the organization within a community./92/ By appearing as the lead plaintiff in a major lawsuit, the group acquires visibility; when it wins, it acquires clout. While these considerations may appear irrelevant to the development of a successful lawsuit, they may matter greatly to a fledgling organization.
I.D.3. Organizational Standing
An organization that suffers injury in its own right—rather than, or in addition to, an injury to the rights of its members—has individual standing as a group./93/ When the group asserts an injury to its own interests, the group has standing qua group, irrespective of any injury to members./94/ Thus, a group that suffers or will suffer economic harm,/95/ or diminution in membership attributable to unlawful conduct, has an individual injury sufficient to confer standing./96/ However, the facts relating to this harm are subject to discovery./97/ Prior to litigation, prospective organizational plaintiffs should be advised to keep careful records of membership loss or diversion of resources./98/
Only in limited circumstances, absent economic harm or diminution in membership, do courts uphold the assertion of standing for groups that suffer an injury to their organizational goals./99/ While Havens Realty and Arlington Heights, discussed above, expand marginally the opportunity for an organization to establish individual standing based upon injury to its non-economic agenda, they do not undermine Sierra Club, Schlesinger and Allen v. Wright, all of which prohibit standing based upon a general injury to a group’s ideological interests./100/ Thus, group standing deriving from injury to the group’s non-economic interests offers only limited possibilities for litigation.
In structuring a claim by a group suing qua group, every effort should be made to identify and plead some kind of economic harm or threat to membership flowing from the challenged conduct. Because combining individual group standing with associational group standing increases the likelihood of success in establishing standing, a group asserting injury to its own interests should, whenever possible, also plead representative standing.
I.E. Prudential Limitations on Standing
As a matter of judicial self-governance, the Court has also held that prudential considerations counsel against standing even in cases in which the Article III case or controversy requirement has been satisfied. These considerations are motivated by the Court’s reluctance to decide matters of national significance that it regards as being more appropriately resolved by other branches of government and unlikely to protect the interests presented./101/ The Court has identified three prudential doctrines: (1) the limitation of taxpayer or generalized grievance standing, (2) the zone of interests test and (3) limitations on third-party standing.
I.E.1. The Zone-of-Interests Test
Beginning in Association of Data Processing Service Organizations Inc. v. Camp/102/, the Court has required that plaintiffs establish that their grievance “must arguably fall within the zone of interests protected or regulated by the statutory provision or constitutional guarantee invoked in the suit.”/103/ This prudential limitation on standing is “founded in concern about the proper—and properly limited—role of the courts in a democratic society.”/104/ The limitation may be set aside by Congress./105/ The zone-of-interests test originally arose from an interpretation of the standing provision in the Administrative Procedure Act./106/ The Court, however, has expanded it to apply to any provision of law./107/
In Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, the Court suggested a liberal standard for applying the zone-of-interests test./108/ A plaintiff fails the test when there is express legislative intent to preclude review./109/ The presumption is in favor of judicial review, which may be overcome only by clear and convincing evidence found in the legislative scheme./110/ Subsequently, the Court expressly stated that the zone-of-interest test “is not meant to be especially demanding,” precluding standing only when “the plaintiff’s interests are so marginally related to or inconsistent with the purposes implicit in the statute that it cannot be assumed that Congress intended to permit the suit.”/111/
The Court has more recently continued to adhere to a relaxed interpretation of the zone-of-interests test. In National Credit Union Administration v. First National Bank and Trust Co., for example, the Court allowed a competing bank to challenge an order which was issued by the National Credit Union Administration and enlarged the charter of a credit union./112/ The Court reasoned that the underlying Act’s purpose was to limit the scope of memberships in credit unions—an interest shared by competing banks. Nonetheless, the Court has applied the test to deny standing. In Air Courier Conference v. American Postal Workers Union, the Court held that the postal worker’s union did not have standing to challenge the suspension of the monopoly over extremely urgent letters under the Postal Express Statutes, noting that those statutes were not intended to protect jobs./113/
I.E.2. Third Party Standing
Third-party standing issues arise when a party seeks relief by asserting the rights of third parties not before the court. Generally, parties may seek only to vindicate their own legal rights rather than those of others. The presumption against third-party or jus tertii standing rests on prudential principles rather than an application of Article III limitations on standing./114/ Those prudential limitations, in turn, are grounded upon concerns that third parties may not wish to have their rights asserted, that parties are less likely to advocate vigorously the rights of others, and that the quality of judicial decision making may suffer when concrete evidence of harm is not presented by those suffering it./115/ The Supreme Court has generally permitted third-party standing in cases when enforcement of the challenged law or conduct affects third parties indirectly, but has been somewhat less willing to sanction use of third-party standing in other contexts./116/
The Court developed a three-part test, each prong of which must be satisfied in order to bring third-party claims: “[t]he litigant must have suffered an ‘injury in fact,’ thus giving him or her a ‘sufficiently concrete interest’ in the outcome of the issue in dispute; the litigant must have a close relationship to the third party; and there must exist some hindrance to the third party’s ability to protect his or her own interests.”/117/ As this test has been applied, however, the Court has found standing even in cases in which the second or third prong has not been clearly established.
The first prong of the test has been rigorously enforced. The plaintiff must satisfy traditional constitutional standing requirements; the challenged law or conduct must injure the party in order for that party to assert the rights or interests of third parties. These requirements have been found to be satisfied when, for example, the plaintiff challenges laws that cause it economic harm,/118/ or a criminal defendant challenges jury selection procedures./119/
With respect to the second prong, the Supreme Court has not articulated specific standards for the degree of the closeness of the relationship between the plaintiff and the third party whose rights are asserted, or the nature of the relationship which satisfies this criterion. Nonetheless, a number of cases offer significant guidance.
In Singleton v. Wulff, a leading case in this area, the Supreme Court held that a physician had standing to assert the rights of patients in challenging a state statute limiting Medicaid-covered abortions. The Court noted the close relationship between doctor and patient and stated that the relationship was directly implicated by the law challenged. Similarly, the Court permitted an attorney to challenge a statute limiting the ability to recover attorney fees in black lung benefit cases on the ground that the statute violated his client’s due process right to legal representation./120/ In so doing, the Court observed that third-party standing was appropriate in cases in which the limitation or restriction challenged by the plaintiff prevented the third party from establishing a lawful relationship with the plaintiff./121/
This notion explains a number of cases in which the Court held that suppliers of products may challenge restrictions on sales by asserting the rights of customers to obtain the product. In Craig v. Boren, for example, a seller of beer was permitted to challenge on equal protection grounds an Oklahoma law that prohibited sales of 3.2 percent beer to men under 21, while allowing the sale to women aged 18 to21./122/ While the relationship between a tavern and customers seems more tenuous than that between a doctor and patient or an attorney and client, the Court justified its holding on the ground that the seller “is entitled to assert those concomitant rights of third parties that would be ‘diluted or adversely affected’ should her constitutional challenge fail and the statutes remain in force.”/123/ Similarly, the Court has permitted booksellers to assert the First Amendment rights of book buyers/124/ and sellers of contraceptives to assert the privacy rights of customers./125/
With respect to the third prong of the test, the Supreme Court frequently permits third-party standing when the third party is unlikely to assert its own interests. Most recently, the Court permitted third-party standing in jury selection cases. In Powers v. Ohio, a white criminal defendant appealed his conviction on the ground that the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges violated the equal protection rights of prospective African American jurors./126/ The Court first found that discriminatory use of peremptory challenges caused the defendant injury in fact, regardless of race, because such use called into question the fairness of the trial./127/ Second, the Court held that the connection between the defendant and excluded jurors was “as close as, if not closer than” those in cases such as Triplett because “[v]oir dire permits a party to establish a relation, if not a bond of trust, with the jurors.”/128/ Somewhat more convincingly, the Court further noted that the defendant was likely to advocate vigorously on behalf of the excluded jurors in order to secure a reversal of his conviction./129/ The Court held that excluded jurors were unlikely to challenge their exclusion since the costs were high and potential benefits low, but that, even if they did, they would be unable to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief./130/ The Powers rationale has been extended to civil cases/131/ and challenges to the selection of grand jurors./132/
The question of barriers to third parties enforcing their own rights has also featured prominently in cases involving unlawful racial covenants and the distribution of contraceptives. In Barrows v. Jackson, for example, whites who sued for violating racially restrictive covenants in their deeds were permitted to assert the equal protection rights of African Americans, who could not sue as they were not parties to the covenant./133/ In Eisenstadt v. Baird, a doctor who was prosecuted for distributing contraceptives to unmarried persons was permitted to assert the rights of such persons./134/ Such persons were not subject to prosecution and were thereby “denied a forum in which to assert their own rights.”/135/
At the same time, one can imagine scenarios in which young males interested in buying 3.2 percent beer, Medicaid beneficiaries, individuals wishing to obtain contraceptives, and African Americans seeking to purchase property encumbered by a racially restrictive covenant could assert their rights in litigation that they would initiate. This suggests a reasonably relaxed approach to the third prong of the test. However, this may be more reflective of the Court’s more generally forgiving approach to standing in the 1970s. The more recent cases in the jury selection area did not raise significant third-prong problems. However, the Court’s most recent third-party standing case struck a more cautionary note, focusing more on legal barriers to third-parties bringing claims than their likelihood of success in doing so. In Kowalski, the Court held that pro se criminal defendants were not hindered in challenging a state statute forbidding the appointment of appellate counsel./136/
At least two justices have suggested that the Supreme Court revisit and clarify the law of third-party standing. In Miller v. Albright, a woman born abroad and out of wedlock to an American father and a foreign mother challenged, along with her father, a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that created different citizenship requirements for those born abroad of an alien father and American mother as opposed to those born abroad to an alien mother and American father./137/ The lawsuit asserted that the father’s equal protection rights were violated. Nonetheless, the district court dismissed the father’s claim for lack of standing. The father did not appeal.
Citing only Craig, the plurality opinion written by Justice Stevens and joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist held that third-party standing was appropriate. Addressing the issue in more detail, Justice Breyer, on behalf of Justices Souter and Ginsburg, who dissented on other grounds, agreed. Justice O’Connor, joined by Justice Kennedy, would have denied third-party standing on the ground that the father did not face sufficient barriers to asserting his own rights. Justices Scalia and Thomas expressed agreement with Justice O’Connor, but cited Craig to suggest that the third prong of the test was not especially demanding. Justice Scalia concluded that “[o]ur law on this subject is in need of what may charitably be called clarification.”/138/
The most sensible approach to litigation in the face of uncertainty is to avoid third-party standing problems by joining appropriate additional plaintiffs. Creating a complex and unnecessary obstacle to the assertion of a claim by attempting to have one plaintiff assert the rights of others makes no sense. Simply join representative individuals whose rights are at issue as named plaintiffs.
Third-party standing rules are more clearly developed in the context of overbreadth claims. The prototype overbreadth claim arises when regulation of activity protected by the First Amendment is challenged on the ground that the regulation sweeps substantial protected as well as unprotected conduct or expression within its prohibition. When plaintiff is engaging in expression clearly subject to permissible regulation under a properly drawn restraint, the overbreadth challenge raises third-party standing issues.
The leading case is Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co./139/ The Court held that a plaintiff invoking third-party standing in an overbreadth case must establish only that he had suffered injury in fact and that he would adequately frame the issues./140/ To demonstrate injury in fact in an overbreadth case, the plaintiff must demonstrate “a genuine threat of enforcement” of the statute against his future activities./141/ Underlying the special third-party standing rule for overbreadth cases is the risk that the absent party whose rights are at issue may refrain from the protected activity rather than sue to vindicate First Amendment rights. Should that happen, society loses the views of those who are silenced.
1. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 126 S. Ct. 1854, 1860-61 (2006).
2. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).
3. Ass’n of Data Processing Serv. Org. Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 151 (1970).
4. See, e.g., Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004) (relying on principles of prudential standing to deny standing to a student’s father who sought to challenge the requirement that his daughter recite the Pledge of Allegiance, when the father’s right to act on his daughter’s behalf was founded on disputed issues of state family law).
5. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 126 S. Ct. at 1861, n.3; FW/PBS Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 231 (1990).
6. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561.
8. While the Supreme Court reviews standing sua sponte “where [it] [has been erroneously assumed below,” it does not examine standing “simply to reach an issue for which standing has been denied below. …”, a conclusion not challenged in the appellant’s petition for certiorari. Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Mineta, 534 U.S. 103, 110 (2001). By contrast, courts of appeal are obliged to examine standing under all circumstances. See, e.g., Wyo. Outdoor Council v. U.S. Forest Serv., 165 F.3d 43, 47 (D.C. Cir. 1999).
9. DaimlerChrysler, 126 S. Ct. at 1867-68.
10. Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Envtl. Serv., 528 U.S. 167 (2000).
11. Clinton v. New York, 524 U.S. 417, 432 (1998).
12. Id. at 432-34 (cooperative has standing to challenge veto of tax benefit enacted to foster ability to purchase processing plants); Ass’n of Data Processing Serv. Org. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 154-56 (1970) (data processing service providers have standing to challenge decision to permit banks to provide such services to other banks).
13. Clinton, 524 U.S. at 432-33.
15. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972).
16. See Sierra Club v. Morton, 348 F. Supp. 219 (N.D. Cal. 1972).
17. United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), 412 U.S. 669 (1973).
18. Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 889 (1990).
19. Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, 438 U.S. 59 (1978).
20. Id. at 73. The Supreme Court suggested that the threat of a core meltdown and the present consequences in terms of personal anxiety and decreased property values of that threat were too speculative to confer standing.
21. Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871 (1990).
22. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992).
23. Id. at 563 (citations omitted).
24. Id. at 564. The Supreme Court also disposed of alternative theories asserting standing by those who use any part of a “contiguous ecosystem,” by those interested in seeing endangered animals, and by those with a professional interest in animals. Id. at 565-66.
25. Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 183-84.
27. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 576-78.
28. Id. at 578 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500 (1975)).
30. Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3612.
31. Trafficante v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 409 U.S. 205 (1972).
32. Id. at 208. Following Trafficante, the Supreme Court later held that cities and homeowners had standing to challenge racial steering practices (Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 109-15 (1979)) and that “testers,” individuals posing as prospective buyers or renters, had standing to sue for racially motivated misrepresentations that housing was unavailable. Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 372-75 (1982).
33. Cf. Vt. Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000) (realtor has standing under False Claims Act as the Act may be regarded as partially assigning the United States’ damage claims to third parties).
34. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 572.
35. Id. at 572 n.7. The example used by the Supreme Court involved one who was living next to a proposed dam and had standing to challenge the failure to prepare an environmental impact statement even though there was no guarantee that such a statement would result in the dam not being built.
36. Id. at n.8. Compare Shays v. FEC, 414 F.3d 76, 91-92 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (finding standing) with The Center for Law and Educ. v. Dept. of Educ., 396 F.3d 1152 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (rejecting standing). Courts of appeal decisions applying “procedural rights” standing include Wyoming Outdoor Council, 165 F.3d at 43, 51 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (plaintiff may sue for the denial of procedural rights in the Forest Service’s grant of authority to drill on federal lands even though there was “no certainty” that the drilling would take place); Moreau v. F.E.R.C., 982 F.2d 556, 564 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (plaintiffs had standing to contest the agency’s failure to give them notice of proceedings and to hold an evidentiary hearing regarding the construction of a natural gas pipeline notwithstanding the plaintiffs’ failure to show that such pre-deprivation safeguards would have changed the outcome); see also Defenders of Wildlife v. EPA, 420 F.3d 946, 957-58 (9th Cir. 2005); Yesler Terrace Cmty. Council v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 442, 446-47 (9th Cir. 1994); Fla. Audubon Soc’y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 664 (D.C. Cir. 1996); Banks v. Sec’y. of Ind. Family & Soc. Serv. Admin., 997 F.2d 231, 238-39 (7th Cir. 1993) (plaintiffs eligible for Medicaid have standing to challenge Medicaid agency’s failure to give notice and hearing before denying reimbursement claims).
37. See, e.g. Bensman v. U.S. Forest Serv., 408 F.3d 945 (7th Cir. 2005) (rejecting, in Appeals Reform Act case, informational injury as a sufficient substantive interest to warrant procedural injury standing).
38. The most recent Supreme Court case on this point is DaimlerChrysler Corp., 126 S. Ct. at 1854, in which the Court rejected state and municipal taxpayer standing for the same reasons that it had done so in prior federal taxpayer standing cases. The only area in which the Supreme Court has approved of taxpayer standing is in suits challenging particular government spending on grounds that it violates the Establishment Clause. See Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589 (1988); Grand Rapids Sch. Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373 (1985), overruled in part on other grounds by Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 201 (1997); Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968). In DaimlerChrysler, the Court expressly refused to expand this exception to Commerce Clause cases. DaimlerChrysler, 2006 U.S. LEXIS 3956, at *27-29, 2006 WL 1310731, at *10-11.
39. United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166 (1974).
40. Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208 (1974).
41. Richardson, 418 U.S. at 172.
42. Schlesinger, 418 U.S. at 226.
43. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490 (1975).
45. See, e.g., Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820 n.3 (1997).
46. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984).
47. Id. at 753-59. The Supreme Court found that the latter claim stated a cognizable injury – a reduced ability to receive an integrated education. However, the Court held that the plaintiffs failed to show that revocation of tax exemption of discriminatory private schools would enhance the cause of integration. Such a showing required several layers of speculation: how many schools actually received favorable tax treatment, the extent to which they discriminated, whether they would change any policies if their tax exempt status were revoked, whether white parents would leave the school if the school changed its policies, and whether sufficient numbers of white students would leave and attend public schools to meaningfully alter the racial balance.
49. F.E.C. v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11 (1998).
50. For similar cases, see Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 739 (1984) (men have standing to challenge constitutionality of social security statute that treated men and women differently even though prevailing could not possibly help them); Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 373-74 (1982) (tester has standing to challenge discrimination). For an explanation why the Supreme Court finds standing in some cases presenting generalized grievances and not others, see Richard Pierce, Administrative Law Treatise§ 16.4 at 1152-53 (4th ed. 2002).
51. Duke Power Co., 438 U.S. at 59; SCRAP, 412 U.S. at 669. See also Bryant v. Yellen, 447 U.S. 352 (1980).
52. Professor Pierce opines that these cases reflect the Supreme Court’s use of causation to preclude review of cases that pose difficult justiciability issues on other grounds. Pierce, supra note 50, § 16.5 at 1165-66.
53. Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614 (1973).
56. Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977).
59. Environmental litigants in Duke Power Co., 438 U.S. at 59, also overcame Warth’s stringent causation requirement. By introducing the testimony of industry representatives before congressional committees expressing their unwillingness to develop nuclear power without a liability cap, plaintiffs established that, but for the cap, the plants would likely not be built. When the utility company asserted it could proceed without the cap, plaintiffs introduced the company’s letter to Congress, which said that its suppliers and contractors would not proceed without the cap. Thus, plaintiffs demonstrated that the cap caused the aesthetic injuries of which they complained.
60. Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26 (1976).
62. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95 (1983).
63. While Lyons and its progeny do not bar damage claims, those claims frequently are of only uncertain value. Individual defendants assert the defense of qualified immunity, state agencies assert immunity under the Eleventh Amendment, and local governmental bodies assert that the challenged action is not attributable to the governmental body. See generally the discussion of immunities and municipal liability in Chapter 8, § 1 of this Manual.
64. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 568-71.
65. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t., 523 U.S. 83 (1998).
66. Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 174, quoting Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a), (g). Even the dissent declined to conclude that this statute was unconstitutional in the sense that the citizen-suit provision in the Endangered Species Act was in Defenders of Wildlife.
67. Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 184.
69. Pierce, supra note 50, §16.7. See also Akins, Havens Realty, and Trafficante, discussed infra.
70. Vt. Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000).
71. Pierce, supra n. 50, § 16.7. This may explain cases like Warth, Eastern Kentucky, Linda R.S., Allen, and certain taxpayer standing cases.
72. Hunt v. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333 (1977).
73. Id. at 343. See also Friends of the Earth, 528 U.S. at 181 (association successfully demonstrates standing of members through declarations).
74. United Food & Commercial Workers v. Brown Group, Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 556-57 (1996) (holding that the prong “may guard against the hazard of litigating a case to the damages stage only to find plaintiff lacking detailed records or the evidence necessary to show the harm with sufficient specificity. And it may hedge against any risk that the damages recovered by the association will fail to find their way into the pockets of the members on whose behalf injury is claimed”).
75. See, e.g., Ne. Fla. Chapter v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 666 (1993) (injury-in-fact requirement in equal protection case does not require plaintiff to prove that she would have obtained benefit in absence of challenged barrier).
76. United Food & Commercial Workers, 517 U.S. at 555; ACLU of Ohio Found. v. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d 484, 489-90 (6th Cir. 2004) (identifying single member who appeared in a courthouse to challenge display there on Establishment Clause grounds); Consumer Fed. of America v. FCC, 348 F.3d 1009, 1011-12 (D.C. Cir. 2003). An example of a case in which a plaintiff could have identified an injured member, but failed to do is Nat’l Alliance for the Mentally Ill v. Bd. of County Commr’s, 376 F.3d 1292, 1296 (11th Cir. 2004).
79. Gettman v. D.E.A., 290 F.3d 430, 435 (D.C. Cir. 2002).
80. In Hunt, a state agency whose members were voted on by apple growers was found to have standing. Hunt, 432 U.S. at 344. Even though not a membership entity, the agency served the interests of a definable group of people, possessed “indicia” of membership organizations, and had a financial nexus with its constituents. See also Ore. Advocacy Ctr. v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101, 1110 (9th Cir. 2003) (federally authorized protection and advocacy organization would have standing to sue on behalf of disabled constituents as an association, despite not having membership, if one constituent had standing); Doe v. Stincer, 175 F.3d 879, 885 (11th Cir. 1999) (same)).
81. Gettman, 290 F.3d at 435 (magazine with readership lacks associational standing); Fund Democracy v. S.E.C., 278 F.3d 21 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (one-person business which represents an informal consortium of groups lacks standing); Ass’n for Retarded Citizens of Dallas v. Dallas County Mental Health & Mental Retardation Bd. of Trs., 19 F.3d 241 (5th Cir. 1994) (public interest advocacy group lacks standing based solely on resources directed toward representing disabled persons in response to the actions of another party).
82. See, e.g., Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund v. U.S. Dep’t. of Agric., 415 F.3d 1078, 1103-1104 (9th Cir. 2005) (non profit association representing cattle producers on international trade and market issues does not have standing to bring National Environmental Policy Act claims)
83. Humane Soc’y of the U.S. v. Hodel, 840 F.2d 45, 58 (D.C. Cir. 1988).
84. Int’l Union, United Auto., Aerospace and Agric. Workers of America v. Brock, 477 U.S. 274 (1986); Pennell v. City of San Jose, 485 U.S. 1, 7 (1988); Hosp. Council of W. Pa. v. City of Pittsburgh, 949 F.2d 83, 89 (3d Cir. 1991).
85. Pharm. Care Mgmt. Ass’n. v. Rowe, 429 F.3d 294, 310-311 (1st Cir. 2005); Retired Chicago Police Ass’n v. City of Chicago, 7 F.3d. 584, 603 (7th Cir. 1993); Hosp. Council, 949 F.2d at 89.
86. Retired Chicago Police Ass’n, 7 F.3d at 603-7 (surveying circuit split); see also Note, Associational Standing for Organizations with Internal Conflicts of Interest, 69 U. CHI. L. REV. 351 (2002).
87. United Food & Commercial Workers, 517 U.S. at 554-59.
88. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 515 (1975); Bano v. Union Carbide Corp., 361 F.3d 696, 714 (2d Cir. 2004) (noting that no Supreme Court or circuit court case has approved of representational standing in cases seeking monetary relief, Indian organizations lack standing to bring damage claims for Bhopal-related injuries on behalf of members).
89. Int’l Union, United Auto., Aerospace and Agric. Workers, 477 U.S. at 274.
92. Legal Services Corporation (LSC) restrictions permit the representation of groups, corporations, and associations which meet financial eligibility requirements. 45 C.F.R. § 1611.6(a).
93. That injury can be one defined by Congress. For example, in Addiction Specialists v. Township of Hampton, 411 F.3d 399, 405-07 (3d Cir. 2005), a methadone clinic had standing to pursue ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims for injunctive and compensatory relief based on its association with its clients. See also Innovative Health Sys., Inc. v. City of White Plains, 117 F.3d 37, 47 (2d Cir. 1997).
94. Representative and organizational standing must be distinguished. See Irish Lesbian and Gay Org. v. Giuliani, 143 F.3d 639, 649 (2d Cir. 1998) (group had standing because of economic harm to the organization, but organization did not have representative standing to seek damages for individual members).
95. This economic harm may take the form of expenditures that would not be required but for the challenged action. See Mid-Hudson Catskill Rural Migrant Ministry, Inc. v. Fine Host Corp., 418 F.3d 168, 174-75 (2d Cir. 2005); Smith v. Pac. Props. & Dev. Corp., 358 F.3d 1097, 1105-06 (9th Cir. 2004) (reversing dismissal of complaint by advocacy group for the disabled which alleged that it diverted resources to monitor and publicize alleged discrimination).
96. See, e.g., NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 459-60 (1958); Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 157-59 (1951) (concurring opinions of Frankfurter, J., Douglas, J., and Burton, J.); M.O.C.H.A. Soc’y v. City of Buffalo, 199 F. Supp. 2d 40, 46 (W.D.N.Y. 2002) (finding associational standing based on loss of membership); Wyoming Timber Indus. Ass’n v. U.S. Forest Serv., 80 F. Supp. 2d 1245, 1253 (D. Wyo. 2000) (validating organizational standing based on economic harm to a trade association). But see Minn. Fed’n of Teachers v. Randall, 891 F.2d 1354, 1359 (8th Cir. 1989) (holding that fear of potential loss of union membership is insufficient to confer organizational standing).
97. Membership rolls, e.g., may be discoverable depending on whether “good cause” exists for a protective order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). See generally Courier Journal v. Marshall, 828 F.2d 361, 364-67 (6th Cir. 1987) (affirming the district court’s use of discretion in fashioning a protective order that recognizes the associational rights of nonparty members of the Ku Klux Klan).
98. Failure to cite to such record evidence in the district court waives the assertion of organizational standing on appeal. Nat’l Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 376 F.3d at 1295-96.
99. But see American Canoe Ass’n v. City of Louisa Water & Sewer Comm’n., 389 F.3d 536 (6th Cir. 2004) (organizations have standing to challenge failure to comply with the reporting and monitoring that the Clean Water Act requires because lack of such information impaired organizations’ missions to monitor and report on environmental issues).
100. See Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 372-80 (1982) (organization dedicated to open housing has standing to challenge realty company’s discriminatory practices because they injured the group’s ability to advance its purposes and caused a diversion of resources responding to complaints about the company).
101. See Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 11-12 (2004) (invoking principles of prudential limitations to reject standing of father to challenge constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance on behalf of his daughter when his right to do so was clouded by unsettled issues of state family law).
102. Ass’n of Data Processing Serv. Org. Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150 (1970).
103. Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 162 (1997).
105. Congress must do so explicitly, such as through enactment of a citizen-suit provision. See, e.g., Bennett, 520 U.S. at 164 n.2.
106. Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702.
107. Bennett, 520 U.S. at 163. See, e.g. Thinket Ink Info. Res., Inc. v. Sun Microsystems, Inc. 368 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2004) (minority-owned business falls within zone of interests of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 if it suffers racial discrimination or has an imputed racial identity).
108. Block v. Cmty. Nutrition Inst., 467 U.S. 340 (1984).
109. The Block Court unanimously held that consumers of milk lacked standing to challenge milk marketing orders because there was evidence of congressional intent to deny consumers a right to obtain judicial review of such orders. Id. at 347-48.
111. Clarke v. Sec. Indus. Ass’n, 479 U.S. 388, 399-400 (1987).
112. Nat’l Credit Union Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479 (1998).
113. Air Courier Conference v. American Postal Workers Union, 498 U.S. 517, 524-25 (1991).
114. See United Food & Commercial Workers Union v. Brown Group, 517 U.S. 544, 557 (1996).
115. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 114-15 (1976); ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, FEDERAL JURISDICTION 83-89 (3d ed. 1999).
116. Kowalski v. Tesmer, 125 S. Ct. 564, 567 (2004).
117. Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 411 (1991) (citations omitted). See Kowalski, 125 S. Ct. at 567.
118. See Singleton, 428 U.S. at 119 (doctor suffers loss of Medicaid reimbursement income).
119. See Powers, 499 U.S. at 411 (discriminatory use of peremptory challenges harms criminal defendant).
120. U.S. Dep’t. of Labor v. Triplett, 494 U.S. 715, 720-21 (1990). In its most recent third-party standing case, the Supreme Court held that criminal defense attorneys did not have third-party standing to assert claims of future clients. Kowalski, 125 S. Ct. at 567-68.
121. Triplett, 494 U.S. at 720. This principle might have been applied in Kowalski, but was not
122. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).
123. Id. at 195. Craig’s sweep is potentially quite broad. The articulated justification for the decision admits of no logical limit, and how the third prong, discussed infra, was satisfied is difficult to see. The Supreme Court observed that the law banned the sale, not the consumption, of 3.2 percent beer, but this hardly seems a substantial barrier blocking young men from challenging the statute.
124. Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S. 383, 392 (1988).
125. Carey v. Population Serv. Int’l, 431 U.S. 678, 682-83 (1977); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 443 (1972). But see Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U.S. 44, 45-46 (1943) (denying standing of doctor to challenge laws prohibiting use of contraceptives on behalf of patients).
131. Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 629 (1991).
132. Campbell v. Louisiana, 523 U.S. 392, 397-98 (1998).
133. Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249 (1953).
134. Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).
136. Kowalski, 125 S. Ct. at 568-69.
137. Miller v Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998).
138. Id. at 451 n.1; see also Kowalski, 125 S. Ct. at 570-71 (Thomas, J., concurring).
139. Sec’y of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947 (1984).
140. Anyone who has suffered injury is unlikely to be unable to frame the issues adequately. Thus, the only real requirement is the irreducible minimum requirement of injury in fact.
141. City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 459 (1987) (quoting Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 475 (1974)). Thus, in Hill, an individual who had been arrested four times but never convicted under an ordinance prohibiting interference with a police officer had standing to seek to enjoin future enforcement on the ground of overbreadth.
Updated 2006