CONSTITUTIONAL STANDING: WHEN CAN A PARTY ACTUALLY BRING A LAWSUIT?

Recently a U.S. Federal District Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could turn over publically gathered data on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) to three environmental groups. American Farm Bureau and National Pork Producers Council (“Plaintiffs”) had expressed concerns the disclosure would violate privacy rights of their members. The district court found the Plaintiffs had no standing to bring the claim.

American courts have had a long tradition of only hearing cases where the parties can demonstrate imminently to be harmed by a law. This means having legally protectable interest in the dispute; this is also known as “standing.” For example, you and your neighbor are having a property line dispute. You and your neighbor would have standing in any dispute involving the property line, but a property owner a mile away would not have standing in a property line dispute between you and your neighbor.

To find standing, courts often require the parties to meet three requirements:

1. The party has an injury-in-fact – the party has suffered or will imminently suffer an injury to a legally protected interest. The injury cannot be hypothetical or abstract.

2. The causation relationship between the injury and the defendant’s action is being challenged.

3. It must be likely that the injury can be solved by a favorable decision and not merely speculative.

A party demonstrating all three of these elements will have standing to bring a claim in court.

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