Editing Standing (law) (section)

==United States==
{{US fed civ pro}}
{{See also|Ripeness|mootness}}
In [[United States law]], the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] has stated, "In essence the question of standing is whether the [[litigant]] is entitled to have the court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues."<ref>''[[Warth v. Seldin]]'', 422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975).</ref> [[John Rutledge]], the second chief justice of the United States, was largely responsible for denying the Supreme Court the right to give advisory opinions at the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]]. Being a judge himself, he strongly believed that a judge's sole purpose was to resolve legal conflicts; he held that judges should hand down an opinion only when they rule on an actual case.<ref name="Flanders">{{cite book
|last=Flanders
|first=Henry
|title=The Lives and Times of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
|year=1874
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qbE427HiSx0C&pg=PA431
|access-date=2008-04-29
|volume=1
|publisher=J. B. Lippincott & Co.
|location=Philadelphia
|pages=432–433
|archive-date=April 26, 2016
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426220336/https://books.google.com/books?id=qbE427HiSx0C&pg=PA431
|url-status=live
}}</ref><ref>Haw, James: [https://books.google.com/books?id=DOdwlJ5r_tYC&pg=PA8 John & Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, P. 8] (1997)</ref>

There are a number of requirements that a plaintiff must establish to have standing before a federal court. Some are based on the [[case or controversy]] requirement of the judicial power of [[Article Three of the United States Constitution]], [[Article III of the Constitution of the United States#Powers|§ 2, cl.1]]. As stated there, "The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases ... [and] to Controversies ...". The requirement that a plaintiff have standing to sue is a limit on the role of the judiciary and the law of Article III standing is built on the idea of [[separation of powers]].<ref name=AllenvWright>{{ussc|name=Allen v. Wright|volume=468|page=737|pin=752|year=1984}}.</ref>

Federal courts may exercise power only "in the last resort, and as a necessity".<ref name=AllenvWright/> The Supreme Court has determined that the [[Case or Controversy Clause|case or controversy]] requirement found in Article Three prohibits [[federal judiciary of the United States|United States federal courts]] from issuing [[advisory opinion]]s. Accordingly, before the court will hear a case, it must find that the parties have a tangible interest at stake in the matter, the issue presented must be "mature for judicial resolution" or [[ripeness|ripe]], and a [[Justiciability|justiciable]] issue must remain before the court throughout the course of the lawsuit.

The [[United States|American]] doctrine of standing is assumed as having begun with the case of ''[[Frothingham v. Mellon]]''.<ref name=Frothingham>{{ussc|name=Frothingham v. Mellon|volume=262|page=447|pin=|year=1923}}.</ref> However, legal standing truly rests its first prudential origins in ''[[Fairchild v. Hughes]]'', (1922) which was authored by Justice [[Louis Brandeis]].<ref>{{ussc|name=Fairchild v. Hughes|volume=258|page=126 |pin=|year=1922}}.</ref> In ''Fairchild'', a citizen sued the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to challenge the procedures by which the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendment]] was ratified. Prior to it, the doctrine was that all persons had a right to pursue a private prosecution of a public right.<ref>''The Metaphor of Standing and the Problem of Self-Governance'', by Steven L. Winter, 40 ''Stan. L. Rev.'' 1371, July, 1988.</ref> Since then the doctrine has been embedded in [[Federal Rules of Civil Procedure|judicial rules]] and some statutes.

In 2011, in ''[[Bond v. United States (2011)|Bond v. United States]]'', the U.S. Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant charged with violating a federal statute does have standing to challenge the constitutionality of that statute under the [[Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Tenth Amendment]].<ref>{{ussc|name=Bond v. United States|link=Bond v. United States (2011)|volume=564|page=211|pin=|year=2011}}.</ref>

===Standing requirements===
There are three standing requirements:

# '''Injury-in-fact:''' The plaintiff must have suffered or imminently will suffer injury—an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent (that is, neither conjectural nor hypothetical; not abstract).<ref>{{cite journal
|last1=Varma
|first1=Corey
|year=2016
|title=The Presumption of Injury: Giving Data Breach Victims 'A Leg To Stand On'
|journal=Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law 
|volume=32
|issue=4
|url=http://repository.jmls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1794&context=jitpl
 }}</ref><ref>{{ussc|name=Clapper v. Amnesty International USA|568|398|2013}}</ref> The injury can be either economic, non-economic, or both.
# '''Causation:''' There must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, so that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and not the result of the independent action of some third party who is not before the court.<ref>For example, ''[[Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency]]''  (global warming caused by EPA's refusal to regulate [[carbon dioxide]] emissions satisfied element of causation for Massachusetts's alleged injury of loss of coastland).</ref>
# '''Redressability:''' It must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that a favorable court decision will redress the injury.<ref name="Lujan v 1992">{{ussc|name=Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife|504|555|1992}}.</ref>

===Prudential limitations===
Additionally, there are three major prudential (judicially created) standing principles ('''prudential standing'''). Congress can override these principles via [[statute]]:

# '''General prohibition of [[third-party standing]]:''' A party may only assert their own rights and cannot raise the claims of a third party who is not before the court; exceptions exist where the third party has interchangeable economic interests with the injured party, or a person unprotected by a particular law sues to challenge the oversweeping of the law into the rights of others. For example, a party suing over a law prohibiting certain types of visual material, may sue because the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] rights of theirs, and others engaged in similar displays, might be damaged.<br />Additionally, third parties who do not have standing may be able to sue under the [[next friend]] doctrine if the third party is an infant, mentally handicapped, or not a party to a contract. One example of a statutory exception to the prohibition of third party standing exists in the ''[[qui tam]]'' provision of the Civil [[False Claims Act]].<ref name=VermontANR>{{ussc|name=Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens|volume=529|page=765|pin=|year=2000}}.</ref>
# '''Prohibition of generalized grievances:''' A plaintiff cannot sue if the injury is widely shared in an undifferentiated way with many people. For example, the general rule is that there is no federal taxpayer standing, as complaints about the spending of federal funds are too remote from the process of acquiring them. Such grievances are ordinarily more appropriately addressed in the representative branches.
# '''Zone of interest test:''' There are in fact two tests used by the United States Supreme Court for the zone of interest
## Zone of injury: The injury is the kind of injury that Congress expected might be addressed under the statute.<ref>{{ussc|name=Federal Election Commission v. Akins|volume=524|page=11|pin=|year=1998}}.</ref>
## Zone of interests: The party is arguably within the zone of interest protected by the statute or constitutional provision.<ref>{{ussc|name=Allen v. Wright|volume=468|page=737|pin=|year=1984}}.</ref>

===Recent development of the doctrine===
In 1984, the Supreme Court reviewed and further outlined the standing requirements in a major ruling concerning the meaning of the three standing requirements of injury, causation, and redressability.<ref>''Allen v. Wright'', 468 U.S. at 752 (1984).</ref> In the suit, parents of black public school children alleged that the Internal Revenue Service was not enforcing standards and procedures that would deny tax-exempt status to racially discriminatory private schools. The Court found that the plaintiffs did not have the standing necessary to bring suit.<ref name="avw755">''Allen v. Wright'', 468 U.S. at 755 (1984).</ref> Although the Court established a significant injury for one of the claims, it found the causation of the injury (the nexus between the defendant's actions and the plaintiff's injuries) to be too attenuated.<ref name="avw755" /> "The injury alleged was not fairly traceable to the Government conduct respondents challenge as unlawful".<ref>''Allen v. Wright'', 468 U.S. at 757 (1984).</ref>

In another major standing case, ''[[Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife]]'', 504 U.S. 555 (1992), the Supreme Court elaborated on the redressability requirement for standing.<ref name="Lujan v 1992"/> The case involved a challenge to a rule promulgated by the [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] interpreting §7 of the [[Endangered Species Act of 1973]] (ESA). The rule rendered §7 of the ESA applicable only to actions within the United States or on the high seas. The Court found that the plaintiffs did not have the standing necessary to bring suit, because no injury had been established.<ref>''Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife'', 504 U.S. at 562.</ref> The injury claimed by the plaintiffs was that damage would be caused to certain species of animals and that this in turn injures the plaintiffs by the reduced likelihood that the plaintiffs would see the species in the future. The court insisted though that the plaintiffs had to show how damage to the species would produce imminent injury to the plaintiffs.<ref>''Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife'', 504 U.S. at 564.</ref> The Court found that the plaintiffs did not sustain this burden of proof. "The 'injury in fact' test requires more than an injury to a cognizable interest. It requires that the party seeking review be himself among the injured".<ref>''Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife'', 504 U.S. at 563.</ref> The injury must be imminent and not hypothetical.

Beyond failing to show injury, the Court found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate the standing requirement of redressability.<ref>''Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife'', 504 U.S. at 568.</ref> The Court pointed out that the respondents chose to challenge a more generalized level of government action, "the invalidation of which would affect all overseas projects". This programmatic approach has "obvious difficulties insofar as proof of causation or redressability is concerned".

In a 2000 case, ''[[Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens]]'', 529 U.S. 765 (2000),<ref name=VermontANR/> the [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] endorsed the "partial assignment" approach to ''[[qui tam]]'' relator standing to sue under the [[False Claims Act]] — allowing private individuals to sue on behalf of the U.S. government for injuries suffered solely by the government.<ref>Nathan D. Sturycz, ''The King and I?: An Examination of the Interest Qui Tam Relators Represent and the Implications for Future False Claims Act Litigation'', 28 St. Louis Pub. L. Rev. 459 (2009), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1537749. For the general standing rule, see {{ussc|name=Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife|504|555|1992}}.</ref>

In a 2009 case, ''[[Summers v. Earth Island Institute]],'' 555 U.S. 488 (2009),<ref name="ReferenceA">{{ussc|name=Summers v. Earth Island Institute|555|488|2009}}</ref> the Supreme Court held the petitioner environmental organizations' claim that it was "statistically likely" that some of their members would visit the affected lands was insufficient to support Article III standing. The majority opinion stated the "deprivation of a procedural right without some concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation . . . is insufficient to create Article III standing."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

===Taxpayer standing===
The initial case that established the doctrine of standing, ''[[Frothingham v. Mellon]]'', was a taxpayer standing case.<ref name=Frothingham/>

Taxpayer standing is the concept that any person who pays taxes should have standing to file a [[lawsuit]] against the taxing body if that body allocates funds in a way that the [[taxpayer]] feels is improper. The [[United States Supreme Court]] has held that taxpayer standing is not by itself a sufficient basis for standing against the [[United States government]].<ref>{{ussc|name=Flast v. Cohen|volume=392|page=83|pin=|year=1968}}.</ref> The Court has consistently found that the conduct of the federal government is too far removed from individual taxpayer returns for any injury to the taxpayer to be traced to the use of tax revenues, e.g., ''[[United States v. Richardson]].''

In ''[[DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno]]'',<ref>{{ussc|name=DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno|volume=547|page=332|pin=|year=2006}}.</ref> the Court extended this analysis to state governments as well.  However, the Supreme Court has also held that taxpayer standing is constitutionally sufficient to sue a [[municipal government]] in a [[United States federal court|federal court]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/substantial-interest-standing|title=Substantial Interest: Standing|website=LII / Legal Information Institute}}</ref>

States are also protected against lawsuits by their [[sovereign immunity]]. Even where states waive their sovereign immunity, they may nonetheless have their own rules limiting standing against simple taxpayer standing against the state. Furthermore, states have the power to determine what will constitute standing for a litigant to be heard in a state court, and may deny access to the courts premised on taxpayer standing alone.

In [[California]], taxpayers have standing to sue for any 'illegal expenditure of, waste of, or injury to the estate, funds, or other property of a local agency'.<ref>{{calccp|526a|}}</ref> In [[Florida]], a taxpayer has standing to sue if the state government is acting unconstitutionally with respect to public funds, or if government action is causing some special injury to the taxpayer that is not shared by taxpayers in general. In [[Virginia]], the [[Supreme Court of Virginia]] has more or less adopted a similar rule. An individual taxpayer generally has standing to challenge an act of a city or county where they live, but does not have general standing to challenge state expenditures.

===Standing to challenge statutes===
With limited exceptions, a party cannot have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute unless they will be subjected to the provisions of that statute.  There are some exceptions, however; for example, courts will accept [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] challenges to a statute on overbreadth grounds, where a person who is only partially affected by a statute can challenge the parts that do not affect him on the grounds that laws that restrict speech have a [[Chilling effect (term)|chilling effect]] on other people's right to free speech.

The only other way someone can have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute is if the existence of the statute would otherwise deprive him of a right or a privilege even if the statute itself would not apply to him. The Virginia Supreme Court made this point clear in the case of ''[[Martin v. Ziherl]]'' 607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005). Martin and Ziherl were girlfriend and boyfriend and engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse when Martin discovered that Ziherl had infected her with [[herpes]], even though he knew he was infected and did not inform her of this. She sued him for damages, but because it was illegal (at the time the case was filed) to commit "fornication" (sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married), Ziherl argued that Martin could not sue him because joint tortfeasors – those involved in committing a crime – cannot sue each other over acts occurring as a result of a criminal act (''Zysk v. Zysk'', 404 S.E.2d 721 (Va. 1990)). Martin argued in rebuttal that because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''[[Lawrence v. Texas]]'' (finding that state's sodomy law unconstitutional), Virginia's anti-fornication law was also unconstitutional for the reasons cited in Lawrence. Martin argued, therefore, she could, in fact, sue Ziherl for damages.

Lower courts decided that because the Commonwealth's Attorney does not prosecute [[fornication]] cases and no one had been prosecuted for fornication anywhere in Virginia in over 100&nbsp;years, Martin had no risk of prosecution and thus lacked standing to challenge the statute. Martin appealed. Since Martin had something to lose – the ability to sue Ziherl for damages – if the statute was upheld, she had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute even though the possibility of her being prosecuted for violating it was zero. Since the U.S. Supreme Court in ''Lawrence'' had found that there is a privacy right in one's private, noncommercial sexual practices, the Virginia Supreme Court decided that the statute against fornication was unconstitutional. The finding gave Martin standing to sue Ziherl since the decision in ''Zysk'' was no longer applicable.

However, the only reason Martin had standing to challenge the statute was that she had something to lose if it stayed on the books.

===Standing to challenge a contract award===
Only an "interested party" has standing to challenge a [[government contract|federal contract]] award. In this context, an "interested party" is a company or person who bid for a contract, or a prospective bidder, whose "direct economic interest would be affected by the award of the contract" to another business.<ref>[[United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit]], [https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/11-5079.pdf Digitalis Education Solutions and United States v Morris & Lee (Doing Business as Science First)], p. 5, decided 4 January 2012, accessed 19 December 2023</ref>

=== Ballot measures ===
In ''[[Hollingsworth v. Perry]]'', the Supreme Court ruled that being the proponents of a ballot measure is not by itself enough to confer legal standing. In that case, [[Proposition 8]] had banned same-sex marriage in California, a ban that was ruled unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that the proponents of Proposition 8 has no standing in court since they failed to show that they were harmed by the decision.

===State law===
State law on standing differs substantially from federal law and varies considerably from state to state.<ref name="sassman">{{Cite web |last=Sassman |first=Wyatt |date=2015 |title=A Survey of Constitutional Standing in State Courts |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2977348 |access-date=2022-12-27 |website=SSRN |ssrn=2977348 |language=en}}</ref>

====California====
Californians may bring "[[taxpayer standing|taxpayer]] actions" against public officials for wasting public funds through mismanagement of a government agency, where the relief sought is an order compelling the official not to waste money and fulfill his duty to protect the public fisc.<ref>See, e.g., ''Humane Society of the United States v. State Bd. of Equalization'', [http://online.ceb.com/CalCases/CA4/152CA4t349.htm 152 Cal. App. 4th 349] (2007).</ref>

On  December 29, 2009,  the [[California Courts of Appeal|California Court of Appeal]] for the Sixth District ruled that California Code of Civil Procedure Section 367 cannot be read as imposing a federal-style standing doctrine on California's code pleading system of civil procedure.<ref name="jasmine">{{cite court |litigants=Jasmine Networks, Inc. v. Superior Court (Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.) |vol=180 |reporter=Cal. App. 4th |opinion=980 |date=2009 |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1500032.html |access-date=2018-01-06 }}</ref> In California, the fundamental inquiry is ''always'' whether the plaintiff has sufficiently plead a cause of action, not whether the plaintiff has some entitlement to judicial action separate from proof of the substantive merits of the claim advanced.<ref name="jasmine" /> The court acknowledged that the word "standing" is often sloppily used to refer to what is really ''[[jus tertii]]'', and held that ''jus tertii'' in state law is not the same thing as the federal standing doctrine.<ref name="jasmine" />

====District of Columbia====
The [[District of Columbia]]'s regulations concerning contract award appeals provide for the jurisdiction of the District's Contracts Appeals Board. Standing to appeal a bid is limited to unsuccessful bidders who are in line to be awarded a contract should their protest be successful: the Board has regularly held that a protestor who would not be in line for the contract lacks standing.<ref>Government of the District of Columbia: Contract Appeals Board, [https://app.cab.dc.gov/cabasp/download.aspx?filepath=174461.pdf CAB No. P-474 CUP Temporaries, Inc.], issued on 3 July 1997, accessed on 11 December 2024</ref>