Recap - Law of Standing
• Article III Requirements
– Distinct & Palpable Injury (actual or imminent)
– P’s injury must be fairly traceable to D’s
allegedly unlawful conduct
– Remediable by Court
• Prudential rule of self-restraint
– Plaintiff must assert its own right
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
1
Examples - 1
• Distinct & Palpable Injury
– Satisfied: all plaintiffs in Warth
– Not met: Lujan [claim of injury to aesthetic &
research interests was not sufficiently specific]
– Not met: Lyons v. Los Angeles
• plaintiff subjected to illegal police choke hold had
standing to seek damages, but could not show
actual or imminent injury from future choke holds.
Held: no standing to seek injunction
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
2
Examples - 2
• Causation:
– Satisfied: Regents v. Bakke [white applicant was
injured by UC’s affirmative action plan even though he
couldn’t show he would have been admitted; his injury
was his inability to compete equally, not his rejection]
– Not met: Ps in Warth
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
3
Examples - 3
• Redressability
– Satisfied: Duke Power v. Carolina Study Grp [nuclear
power plants likely to shut down if Price-Anderson Act
(limiting nuclear liability) was declared unconstitutional]
– Not met: Lujan [withdrawal of federal funds would
not necessarily cause cancellation of project]
– Not met: Allen v. Wright [black parents lacked
standing to challenge IRS policy granting tax-exempt
status to discriminatory private schools; loss of taxexemption would not necessarily reverse white flight
from public schools]
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
4
Examples - 4
• Plaintiff must assert its own right - no
third party standing
– Satisfied: Eisenstadt v. Baird [physician could
assert his patient’s right to use contraceptives]
– Not met: Warth [MetroAct members claimed
injury from discrimination against 3rd persons]
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
5
Exceptions to rule against Jus Tertii
• Associational Standing
– in own capacity when its interests affected
– on behalf of its members if:
• members have standing to sue in their own right
• interests asserted are germane to org’s purpose
• neither the claim nor relief require participation by
individual members
• Chilling effect
– right holder unlikely to assert her own rights
• E.g., 1st amendment cases - overbreadth doctrine
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
6
Jus Tertii Exceptions - 2
• Close relationship between P and 3d party
– physicians
– parents
• But see Gilmore v. Utah [Gary Gilmore’s mother
could not challenge his execution]
– bartenders
• Craig v. Boren [bar owner could assert the equal
proection rights of her male patrons]
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
7
Zone of Interest
• P is asserting her own legal rights when she is within
the zone of interests of the statute or consti- tutional
right claimed
– Usually applied in APA cases
• Satisfied: ADAPSO v. Camp [data processing firms
could challenge Comptroller’s ruling allowing banks to
perform data processing services]
• Not met: Air Courier v. Am. Postal Workers’ Union
[postal workers not protected by statute giving USPO
monopoly over rapid letter delivery]
• Congress can define the Zone of Interest
– By enlarging the scope of statutory protection
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
8
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
• ESA creates broad zone of interest
– but insufficient for standing
• Must also meet other 3 factors; including
concrete and particularized “injury in fact.”
– Interest in environmental protection?
• No, too general (not distinct)
– Observing particular animal species adversely
affected by agency’s (illegal) action?
• No, too conjectural and hypothetical (not imminent)
• Contrast Bennett v. Spear (1997)
– Within Zone created by ESA + actual injury
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
9
Procedural Injuries
• “Citizen-suits”
– standing conferred on any person to enforce
procedural elements of ESA.
– Why?
• Is this a struggle between congress and the
executive branch?
• Permits “congress to transfer from the President to
the courts the Chief Executive’s duty to `faithfully
execute the laws’”
– Standing rejected where only right claimed is
“non-instrumental”
• Procedural rights create standing only when
rights.
Fall 2000 associated with substantive
Standing - 2
10
Showing Required at Different
Stages of Litigation
• Pleading
– Bare allegations meeting 4-part test suffice
• Summary Judgment
– Evidentiary facts tending to support claims
• Trial
– Proof of factual assertions
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
11
Raines v. Byrd
Legislator Standing
• Challenge to Line Item Veto Act
– Article I, Section 7
• “If [the President] approves [a bill] he shall sign it,
but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to
that House in which it shall have originated ...
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
12
Injury in Fact
• Loss of legislative power?
– Denial or nullification of vote [Coleman v. Miller]
– Dilution of voting
• not on the Line Item Veto Act itself
• on particular appropriation bills
– diluted only to extent a majority of each house agrees with
their vote, AND
– the President vetos the line item, AND
– congress fails to override
• Perhaps any future injury is too speculative
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
13
Broader SoP Principles
• What are the “more general SoP
principles referred to by J. Souter?
– Court should be hesitant to side with one
branch ws another in a tug-of-war
• Compare Breyer dissent
– While it may be true that intra-branch disputes
where not resolved by courts at common law
– Constitution draws no distrinction between
personal and official harms/standing
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
14
Mootness
• Plaintiff must have live controversy
– when complaint filed, AND
– at all states of litigation
– burden on Def’t to establish mootness
• Case can become moot
– Parties die, events occur or lapse
– Controversy is settled
• Exceptions to mootness
– Voluntary cessation of harm
– Capable of repetition yet evading review
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
15
Ripeness
• Cases brought prematurely are unripe
– Premature if harm lies in future without fair
degree of certainty that it will occur
– Premature if facts are yet to gel, such that
precise contours of controversy are unknown
• Lyons v. Los Angeles (choke hold case)
– Claim for injunction moot
• no longer subject to previous illegal choke hold
– Claim for injunction not ripe
• not certain he will again be subject to choke hold
Fall 2000
Standing - 2
16