Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_06-cv-02816/USCOURTS-azd-2_06-cv-02816-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 950
Nature of Suit: Constitutionality of State Statutes
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

WE ARE AMERICA/SOMOS AMERICA, )

COALITION OF ARIZONA, et al. )

)

Plaintiffs, ) No. CIV-06-2816-PHX-RCB

)

vs. ) O R D E R

)

MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF )

SUPERVISORS, et al. )

)

Defendants. ) )

INTRODUCTION

This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the so-called

“Maricopa Migrant Conspiracy Policy” (“MMCP” or “the Policy”). Am.

Compl. (Doc. 45) at 3:9-10, ¶ 1. Pursuant to that Policy,

allegedly “non-smuggler migrants” are “arrest[ed], detain[ed], and

punish[ed] . . . for conspiring to transport themselves through

Maricopa County[]” in violation of Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2319,

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1 Section 13-2319 was amended by section four of “Support Our Law

Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” as amended by H.B. 2162 (“S.B. 1070"),

amended section 13-2319; and certain sections of S.B. 1070 have been preliminarily

enjoined. See United States v. Arizona, 703 F.Supp.2d 980 (D.Ariz. 2010), aff’d

United States v. Arizona, 641 F.3d 339 (9th Cir. 2011), petition for cert. filed,

(Aug. 10, 2011) (No. 10A1277, 11-182). Significantly, however, that preliminary

injunction did not encompass section four, which made only a “minor change to

Arizona’s preexisting human smuggling statute,” i.e., section 13-2319. See id. at

1000. (That amendment adds “that in the enforcement of the earlier smuggling

statute, ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 13-2319, a law enforcement officer is authorized to stop

any person operating a motor vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion that

the person violated a civil traffic law.” Congressional Research Service, State

Efforts to Deter Unauthorized Aliens: Legal Analysis of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, May

3, 2010, at 6 n. 33, available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41221.pdf).

Thus, because S.B. 1070's amendment to section four did “not alter the . . .

substantive scope” of section 13-2319, the latter has no impact upon the present

litigation. See id. at 6 (footnote omitted). 

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Arizona’s human smuggling statute.1 Id. at 3:8-9, ¶ 1. 

Originally, in this putative class action, the plaintiffs were six

Mexican nationals who had been arrested, detained, and charged with

conspiracy to violate section 13-2319; four community-based

organizations and five individual taxpayers. The defendants

included Andrew Thomas, at the time, the Maricopa County Attorney. 

Thomas allegedly “devised” the MMCP and “persuaded” Joseph Arpaio,

Maricopa County Sheriff, another defendant, “to implement” the

“detention and arrests aspects of [that] [P]olicy.” Id. at 10:1, 

¶ 18; and at 10:1-2, ¶ 18. The remaining defendants are the

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and the individual members of

that Board, Fulton Brock; Don Stapley; Andrew Kunasek; Max Wilson;

and Mary Rose Wilcox (“collectively “the Board”), sued in their

official capacities only. See id. at 9, ¶¶ 16 and 17. 

Assuming familiarity with the protracted history of this

litigation, a few aspects bear mentioning to place defendants’

pending motion to dismiss in context. In We Are America/Somos

America Coalition of Arizona v. Maricopa Co. Bd. of Supervisors,

594 F.Supp.2d 1104 (D.Ariz. 2009) (“We Are America II”), finding

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that “all four elements necessary for Younger abstention [we]re

present[,]” the court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss on that

basis. Id. at 1116 (citation omitted). While affirming this

court’s “determination that it lacked jurisdiction under Younger v.

Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), to

consider the claims of the six” Mexican national plaintiffs, the

Ninth Circuit disagreed “that Younger abstention barred [this

court] from considering the . . . claims” of the organizational and

taxpayer plaintiffs. We Are America/Somos America Coalition of

Arizona v. Maricopa Co. Bd. of Supervisors, 386 Fed.Appx. 726, 727

(9th 2010) (“We Are America III”) (citation omitted). Hence, the

Ninth Circuit instructed this court on remand to “determine whether

the organizational and taxpayer plaintiffs have standing to pursue

their claims.” Id. 

Thereafter, the Board and defendant Arpaio filed the pending

motion to dismiss for lack of standing the claims of those two

groups of plaintiffs. See Mot. (Doc. 68). Defendant William G.

Montgomery, the current Maricopa County Attorney, expressly joins

in that motion. Joinder (Doc. 72). Regardless of which group of

plaintiffs the defense motion is addressing, the essence of their

dismissal argument is the same; that is, the allegations by both

are too broad and generalized to satisfy the injury in fact element

of Article III standing. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, maintain

that they have sufficiently alleged injury, and case law does not

support the specificity which defendants are demanding herein. 

BACKGROUND

The complaint asserts four separate claims. First, plaintiffs

contend that the United States Constitution and the Immigration and

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2 This statute defines conspiracy and its classification as a preparatory

offense. 

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Nationality Act preempt the MMCP. Second, allegedly the MMCP

“violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against

unreasonable searches and seizures[.]” Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at

26:27-28, ¶ 56. Third, allegedly the MMCP also denies “plaintiffs

and their class members due process of law under the Fourteenth

Amendment” by: (1) “failing to provide fair warning of the act

which is made punishable as a crime;” (b) “failing to explain or

define when a person is not ‘lawfully in the state [sic][;]” and

(c) permitting and facilitating plaintiffs’ and class members’

removal from the United States before they can defend against

defendants’ conspiracy criminal charges.” Id. at 27:27-28:7, 

¶¶ 58(a) - 58(c). Fourth, plaintiffs assert a pendent state claim,

alleging that the MMCP “conflicts with and is not authorized by”

Arizona’s human smuggling and conspiracy statutes, “which were not

intended to and do not impose criminal penalties against migrants

transported by smugglers for gain.” Id. at 28:13-16, ¶ 60. 

Mirroring those substantive claims, plaintiffs are seeking,

inter alia, a declaration “that the [MMCP] . . . (a) constitutes an

unconstitutional program of state regulation of international

migration; (b) actually conflicts with the federal government’s

regulation of international migration; (c) violates plaintiffs’

rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to freedom from

unreasonable searches and seizures; (d) violates plaintiffs’ rights

under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to due process of law;

and (e) is inconsistent with and violative of Ariz. Rev. Stat. 

§§ 13-2319 and 13-10032[.]” Id. at 28:25 - 29:9, ¶ 3 (footnote

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3 Hereinafter, unless necessary to distinguish between the original and

the amended complaint, “complaint” shall be read as referring to the amended

complaint. 

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added). Plaintiffs also are seeking to preliminarily and

permanently “restrain defendants, their agents, employees, and

successors in office from further implementing the [MMCP], but only

to the extent such injunctive relief does not interfere with state

proceedings that were underway before initiation of this case or

otherwise require abstention under Younger[.]” Id. at 29:11-16, 

¶ 4. 

DISCUSSION

I. Mootness

Before addressing the merits of the parties’ respective

standing arguments, the court must address the issue of mootness. 

Partially due to the election in November, 2010 of a new Maricopa

County Attorney, and partially because it had been roughly three

and a half years since the filing of the amended complaint,3 the

court ordered supplemental briefing on that issue. 

Because “[u]nder Arizona law, the Board is neither charged

with the legal authority to enforce the Arizona Criminal Code,

including A.R.S. § 13-2319, . . . nor with the authority and duty

to make prosecutorial decisions as to whom to charge and what

charges to actually prosecute against individual suspects[,]” it is

taking “no position” as to whether this action is moot. Supp. Br.

(Doc. 74) at 1:23-28, ¶ 1. 

On the other hand, defendant Joseph Arpaio, “in his official

capacity as the duly elected Sheriff of Maricopa County, is charged

with the legal authority and duty to enforce the Arizona Criminal

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Code, including A.R.S. § 13-2319[.]” Id. at 2:1-3, ¶ 2 (emphasis

added). What is more, defendant Arpaio avows that he “will

continue” to enforce that statute “when probable cause exists for

arresting persons engaged in human smuggling.” Id. at 2:4-5, ¶ 2. 

Acknowledging that he “lacks the legal authority and duty to make

prosecutorial decisions as to whom to charge and what charges to

actually prosecute against individual suspects,” Arpaio nonetheless

“submits that this case does not appear to be moot.” Id. at 2:5-7,

¶ 2. More importantly, “from his communications with . . . counsel

for Defendant Montgomery,” Arpaio’s counsel indicates that it is

his “understand[ing][] . . . , that the prosecution policy of the

Maricopa County Attorney’s Office regarding the potential for

charging persons with conspiracy to violate A.R.S. § 13-2319

remains the same as on the date when Plaintiffs filed their suit.” 

Id. at 2:8-12, ¶ 3.

Defendant Montgomery’s supplemental brief readily dispels any

doubt as to whether this action has become moot. In his capacity

as Maricopa County Attorney, Montgomery advises that his

“enforcement policy has not changed from the previous County

Attorney Defendants [sic].” Supp. Br. (Doc. 73) at 2:8-9, ¶ 3

(emphasis added). Therefore, defendant Montgomery unequivocally

declares “that this matter is not moot.” Id. 2:10 ¶ 4. Plaintiffs

agree. See Resp. (Doc. 75) at 4:1-2 (“[D]efendants admit they

continue to pursue the challenged policy and correctly affirm that

this matter is not moot.”) Accordingly, despite the election of a

new County attorney and the passage of time, undoubtedly this

action is not moot. Thus, the court will proceed to the merits.

. . .

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4 Due to the court-ordered simultaneous filings herein, plaintiffs were

uncertain as to what form defendants’ jurisdictional challenge would take. As a

precaution, “[i]n the event defendants press[ed] the Court to look beyond the

pleadings to resolve the issue of standing,” plaintiffs sought notice and an

opportunity to conduct discovery. Resp. (Doc. 69) at 1 n.1. However, because

defendants’ challenge is strictly facial, no additional notice or discovery is

necessary. 

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II. Article III Standing

Arguing that neither the organizations nor the taxpayers have

standing, defendants are moving for dismissal of the complaint

based upon Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Mot. (Doc. 68)

at 1:23. The former Rule and not the latter is the proper

procedural vehicle for this motion, however. “Article III standing

is a species of subject matter jurisdiction.” Cariajano v.

Occidental Petroleum Corp., 626 F.3d 1137, 1143 (9th Cir. 2010)

(citation omitted). Thus, “[b]ecause standing . . . pertain[s] to

federal court’s subject matter jurisdiction,” that issue is

“properly raised in a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss[,]” Chandler

v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 598 F.3d 1115, 1122 (9th Cir.

2010), not in a Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim

upon which relief can be granted. White v. Lee, 227 F.3d 1214,

1242 (9th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). Accordingly, the court

deems defendants’ motion to be brought solely pursuant to Rule

12(b)(1). 

A jurisdictional attack under that Rule can be either facial

or factual. Id. (citation omitted). Here, defendants are facially

attacking the complaint due to lack of standing,4 i.e.,

“assert[ing] that the allegations [therein] are insufficient to

establish subject matter jurisdiction as a matter of law[.]” See

Whisnant v. U.S., 400 F.3d 1177, 1179 (9th Cir. 2005). The court

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therefore “assum[e]s [plaintiff[]s’] [factual] allegations to be

true and draw[s] all reasonable inferences in [their] favor.” Doe

v. Holy See, 557 F.3d 1066, 1073 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted). The court does not, however, “accept

the truth of legal conclusions merely because they are cast in the

form of factual allegations.” Id. (internal quotation marks and

citations omitted) (emphasis added by Holy See Court). Lastly, the

court is fully cognizant that standing is a question of law subject

to de novo review. Mayfield v. United States, 599 F.3d 964, 969

(9th Cir. 2010). 

A. Constitutional Considerations

In every case, the issue of standing is a threshold

determination of “whether the litigant is entitled to have the

court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues.” 

Warth v. Seldin. 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343

(1975). “Under Article III, the Federal Judiciary is vested with

the ‘Power’ to resolve not questions and issues but ‘Cases’ or

‘Controversies.’” Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v.

Winn, 563 U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1436, 1441, 179 L.Ed.2d 523 (2011). 

“Article III standing is a controlling element in the definition of

a case or controversy.” Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, 586 F.3d 1109,

1119 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). Article III’s implicit standing requirement “is not

merely a troublesome hurdle to be overcome if possible so as to

reach the ‘merits’ of a lawsuit,” but rather an integral “part of

the basic charter promulgated by the Framers of the

Constitution[.]” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans

United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 476,

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102 S.Ct 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” is

comprised of three elements. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,

504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). The

Supreme Court recently reiterated the by now familiar three

elements of such standing:

‘First, the plaintiff must have suffered 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.’ 

Winn, 131 S.Ct. at 1442 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S., at 560-561, 112

S.Ct. 2130 (citations and footnote omitted)). “At bottom, ‘the

gist of the question of standing’ is whether [plaintiffs] have

‘such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to

assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of

issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination.’” 

Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 517, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 167

L.Ed.2d 248 (2007) (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82

S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962)). Simply put, standing “is about

who is allowed to have their case heard in court[,] . . . not about

who wins the lawsuit[.]” Catholic League for Religious and Civil

Rights v. City of San Francisco, 624 F.3d 1043, 1048 (9th Cir.

2010). 

B. Scope of Inquiry

Before determining whether any or all of the remaining

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5 Plaintiffs’ response cites to, inter alia, Comite de Jornaleros de

Redondo Beach v. City of Redondo Beach, 607 F.3d 1178 (9th Cir. 2010), to support

that proposition. On October 15, 2010, prior to the filing of that response, the

Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc, however. Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo

Beach v. City of Redondo Beach, 623 F.3d 1054 (9th Cir. 2010). Of more consequence

here is that in granting rehearing, the Court unequivocally stated that “[t]he

three-judge panel opinion shall not be cited as precedent by or to any court of

the Ninth Circuit.” Id. at 1055 (emphasis added). Presumably unknowingly,

plaintiffs missed that clear prohibition. Obviously, this court will abide by the

Ninth Circuit’s directive and will not, in any way, rely upon City of Redondo

Beach, 607 F.3d 1178.

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plaintiffs are “allowed to have their case heard in [this] court,”

it is necessary to address the scope of the standing issues

defendants’ motion raises. See id. Defendants first seek

dismissal of the organizations’ claims due to lack of standing. 

Continuing, they separately argue for dismissal of the taxpayers’

claims, also due to lack of standing. Reversing that order,

plaintiffs’ are taking the position that if the court “affirms its

view [in We Are America II] regarding taxpayer[s’] . . . standing,

it need not reach the question of [the] . . . organizations’

standing.”5 Resp. (Doc. 69) at 7:27-28, n. 2 (citations omitted). 

Undoubtedly that is the general rule at the appellate level. 

See, e.g., Watt v. Energy Action Educ. Found., 454 U.S. 151, 160,

102 S.Ct. 205, 70 L.Ed.2d 309 (1981) (because one of three groups

of plaintiffs had standing, Court did “not consider the standing of

the other plaintiffs[]”); Nat'l Ass'n of Optometrists & Opticians

LensCrafters v. Brown, 567 F.3d 521, 523 (9th Cir. 2009) (emphasis

added) (“As a general rule, in an injunctive case this court need

not address standing of each plaintiff if it concludes that one

plaintiff has standing.”); Planned Parenthood of Idaho, Inc. v.

Wasden, 376 F.3d 908, 918 (9th Cir. 2004) (emphasis added) (citing

cases) (“Where the legal issues on appeal are fairly raised by one

plaintiff [who] had standing to bring the suit, the court need not

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consider the standing of the other plaintiffs.”); and Oregon

Advocacy Center v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101, 1109 (9th Cir. 2003)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (“We need only find

that one petitioner has standing to proceed.”)

That general rule does not strictly prohibit a district court,

in a multiple plaintiff case such as this, from considering the

standing of the other plaintiffs even if it finds that one

plaintiff has standing. Thorsted v. Gregoire, 841 F.Supp. 1068

(W.D.Wash. 1994), aff’d other grounds subnom. Thorsted v. Munro, 75

F.3d 454 (9th Cir. 1996), is illustrative. The district court in

Thorsted found that the first of eight plaintiffs had standing. 

Id. at 1072-1073. Despite stating that “[i]f one plaintiff has

standing, it does not matter whether the others do[,]” Id. at 1073

(citing, inter alia, Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 721, 106 S.Ct.

3181, 3185, 92 L.Ed.2d (1986)), the Thorsted court addressed the

standing of other plaintiffs, finding that they all had standing. 

Id. at 1073-1074; see also Slockish v. U.S. Fed. Highway Admin.,

682 F.Supp.23 1178, 1200-1202 (D.Or. 2010) (citations omitted) (“If

any of these parties have standing to bring any of the claims that

can be fairly read to assert a legal right they possess, that claim

must survive even though the remaining plaintiffs lack standing.”);

but see Sierra Club v. El Paso Properties, Inc., 2007 WL 45985, at

*3 (D.Colo. Jan. 5, 2007) (citation omitted) (rejecting defense

argument that court had “an obligation” to consider standing of one

plaintiff where there had been a previous finding that another had

standing, reasoning that both were “represented by the same

counsel, raised the same . . . claims, and . . . presented their

arguments . . . jointly throughout[]”).

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Moreover, in Town of Southold v. Town of E. Hampton, 406

F.Supp.2d 227 (E.D.N.Y. 2005), aff’d in part, vacated in part on

other grounds, 477 F.3d 38 (2d Cir. 2007), the Town plaintiffs

argued that the standing of another plaintiff “to bring a dormant

Commerce Clause claim, obviate[d] the need for the Court to examine

the merits of the Town Plaintiffs’ standing.” Id. at 234 (footnote

omitted). As in the present case, however, the Town plaintiffs did

not “identif[y] any authority for the proposition that the Court

should abstain[.]” Id. at 235. The court therefore “decline[d] to

abstain from . . . examin[ing] [the Town Plaintiffs’] standing.” 

Id. (footnote omitted). In so doing, the court accurately noted

“that[] while some courts have refrained from a standing analysis

once one plaintiff has established standing to assert a claim,

there is at least some authority suggesting that this doctrine may

be limited to appellate review.” Id. at 235 n.5 (citing, inter

alia, Planned Parenthood of Idaho, Inc. v. Wasden, 376 F.3d 908,

919 (9th Cir. 2004)). Ultimately the court held that the Town

plaintiffs did not meet their burden of demonstrating standing, and

it dismissed their claims on that basis. Id. at 236. 

In addition to this case law supporting the court’s view that

it may address the standing of one group of plaintiffs even if

another has standing, there are several compelling reasons for

addressing the standing of all of the remaining plaintiffs herein. 

First, the court cannot overlook the narrow scope of defendants’

dismissal motion. Defendants are facially challenging the

allegations in the complaint, and separately seeking dismissal of

the organization and taxpayer plaintiffs solely because each group

purportedly lacks standing. Thus, finding that the taxpayers have

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standing, but not addressing the organizations’ standing, or vice

versa, would not fully address defendants’ motion. Arguably,

proceeding in that way also would leave at least some of the

plaintiffs in a state of legal limbo. 

Strictly to illustrate, the court makes several assumptions. 

First, it assumes arguendo that the taxpayer plaintiffs have

standing. Second, it assumes that those plaintiffs will prevail on

the merits and receive the declaratory and injunctive relief

sought. Third, the court assumes that there are no further motions

directed solely at the organizations. Based upon that set of

assumptions, the organizations would remain as plaintiffs hereto,

effectively piggybacking on the taxpayers’ claims. 

Even under that scenario, at some point in this litigation the

court would have to resolve the issue of the organizations’

standing. Resolution of that issue is necessary because of the

basic constitutional tenet that a “plaintiff must maintain a

personal stake in the outcome of the litigation throughout its

course.” See Gollust v. Mendell, 501 U.S. 115, 126, 111 S.Ct.

2173, 115 L.Ed.2d 109 (1991) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted) (emphasis added). Thus, Article III standing is relevant

not only with respect to who may access federal courts initially,

but it is also relevant to who may obtain a judgment. See Black

Faculty Ass’n v. San Diego Community College, 664 F.2d 1153, 1155

(9th Cir. 1981) (citations omitted) (“To obtain and sustain a

judgment, a plaintiff must establish facts sufficient to confer

standing.”) Therefore, before deciding the precise nature of the

relief to award herein, necessarily, this court would have to

decide the issue of the organizations’ standing. 

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The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Wasden, supra, is instructive. 

In Wasden, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who performed abortions,

including some on minors, and Planned Parenthood of Idaho, a notfor-profit organization that did not perform abortions, brought a

constitutional challenge to an Idaho statute governing minors’

access to abortion services. Before issuing an injunction

permanently enjoining certain parts of that statute, the district

court found that because the physician had standing, it did not

need to consider Planned Parenthood’s standing. Wasden, 376 F.3d

at 918. Agreeing with the district court, the Ninth Circuit

accepted Planned Parenthood’s argument that it need not address the

standing of that organization because it “shares an attorney with

[the physician], its presence in the suit poses no threat of

enhanced legal fees,” and the physician had standing. Id.

Significantly, however, the Court expressly noted “that on remand,

when the district court enters the appropriate injunctive relief

against enforcement of the statute, it may need to decide whether

Planned Parenthood is a proper plaintiff.” Id. at 918 n. 6. Such

an inquiry may be necessary, the Court reasoned, because “[o]nly a

proper party to an action can enforce an injunction that results

from a final judgment.” Id. (citing, inter alia, Doe v. County of

Montgomery, Ill., 41 F.3d 1156, 1161-62 (7th Cir. 1994) (upholding

the standing of two plaintiffs while affirming the district court’s

dismissal of the third plaintiff’s complaint for lack of

standing).) Wasden thus strongly suggests that whether Planned

Parenthood is a “proper plaintiff” encompasses the issue of whether

it has standing. Here, resolving the standing issue as to all of

the remaining plaintiffs now would obviate that later inquiry.

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Second, resolving the standing issue as to both the

organizations and the taxpayers now is consistent with the fact

that defendants are separately arguing for dismissal of each of

those two plaintiff groups. Defendants’ clear intent was for the

court to separately decide the issue of standing as to the

organizations and the taxpayers. See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 6:1-2

(after discussing the standing of the organizations, and prior to

addressing taxpayer standing, defendants argue that “the Court

should dismiss the organization[s] . . . from this lawsuit for lack

of standing[]”). Thus, if one group of plaintiffs lack standing,

defendants would at least be entitled to partial dismissal, even if

the other group survives this motion to dismiss. By contrast, if

defendants were moving for summary judgment on the dual grounds of

lack of standing and the merits, plaintiffs’ suggestion that the

court need not reach the issue of the organizational plaintiffs’

standing, if it finds that the taxpayers have standing, would carry

far more weight. 

Third, the court cannot disregard the Ninth Circuit’s explicit

directive that “[o]n remand [that] th[is] district court must still

determine whether the organizational and taxpayer plaintiffs have

standing to pursue their claims.” We Are America III, 386

Fed.Appx. at 727 (emphasis added). Assuming that the Ninth Circuit

deliberately chose the conjunctive “and,” as opposed to the

disjunctive “or,” means that this court now has an obligation to

determine the standing of both the organization and taxpayer

plaintiffs, regardless of its determination as to one group or the

other. 

Finally, although not entirely dispositive, the interests of

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judicial economy would not be served in proceeding as plaintiffs

urge, i.e., not addressing the taxpayer standing issue on this

motion to dismiss. In contrast, on appeal, clearly the interests

of judicial economy are best served when, after satisfying itself

that one plaintiff has standing, the court directly proceeds to the

merits, leaving unresolved the standing of the other plaintiffs. 

Judicial economy concerns run the opposite direction here, however. 

Delaying resolution of the issue of whether the organizations have

standing could easily prolong this already fairly protracted

litigation. 

For all of these reasons, the court will not heed plaintiffs’

suggestion and address only the issue of taxpayer standing. 

Instead, the court will begin its standing analysis with the

organizations, as did the defendants, the moving parties. Next,

independent of its determination as to the standing of the

organizations, the court will address the issue of whether the

taxpayers have standing.

2. Organizations

“It is well established that an organization ‘may have

standing in its own right to seek judicial relief from injury to

itself and to vindicate whatever rights and immunities the

association itself may enjoy.’” American Fed’n of Gov’t Employees

Local 1 v. Stone, 502 F.3d 1027, 1030 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting

Warth, 422 U.S., at 511, 95 S.Ct. 2197). In determining whether an

organization has standing, the inquiry is the “same . . . as in the

case of an individual: Has the plaintiff alleged such a personal

stake in the outcome of the controversy as to warrant his

invocation of federal-court jurisdiction?” Havens Realty Corp. v.

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Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 378-79, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214

(1982) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus,

organizations, like individuals, must satisfy the “irreducible

constitutional minimum of standing consist[ing] of three elements:

(1) injury in fact; (2) causation; and (3) redressability.” La

Asociacion de Trabadores de Lake Forest v. City of Lake Forest, 624

F.3d 1083, 1088 (9th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and

citations omitted). Organizational standing, which “is separate

from the standing of the organization’s members, turn[s] . . . on

‘whether the organization itself has suffered an injury in fact.’” 

Fair Housing Alliance v. A.G. Spanos Housing Constr., 542 F.Supp.2d

1054, 1063 (N.D.Cal. 2008) (quoting Smith v. Pac. Props. & Dev.

Corp., 358 F.3d 1097, 1101 (9th Cir. 2004)) (other citation omitted)

(emphasis added). 

a. “Injury in Fact”

In Havens, the seminal organizational standing case, an

organization promoting equal housing alleged that an apartment

complex owner engaged in unlawful discriminatory practices by

“steering” away black renters. Havens, 455 U.S., at 368, 102 S.Ct.

1114. The organization alleged that defendants’ practices

“frustrated . . . its efforts to assist equal access to housing

through counseling and other referral services.” Id. at 379, 102

S.Ct. 1114 (internal quotation marks omitted). The organization

further alleged that it “had to devote significant resources to

identify and counteract the defendant’s [sic] racially

discriminatory steering practices.” Id. (internal quotation marks

omitted). 

Reasoning that “[i]f, as broadly alleged, petitioners’

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steering practices have perceptibly impaired [the organization’s]

ability to provide counseling and referral services for low - and

moderate - homeseekers[,]” the Supreme Court held “there can be no

question that [it] has suffered injury in fact.” Id. (emphasis

added). The Havens Court further reasoned that “[s]uch concrete

and demonstrable injury to the organization’s activities - with the

consequent drain on the organization’s resources – constitutes far

more than simply a setback to the organization’s abstract societal

interests[.]” Id. (citation and footnote omitted). Moreover,

although the injury resulted from the organization’s “noneconomic

interest in encouraging opening housing[,]” that did “not deprive

[it] of standing.” Id. at 379 n. 20, 102 S.Ct. 1114 (citation

omitted). At least at the motion to dismiss stage, such

allegations sufficiently allege organizational standing. See id.

at 379 n. 21 (“Of course, [the plaintiff organization] will have to

demonstrate at trial that it has indeed suffered impairment in its

role of facilitating open housing before it will be entitled to

judicial relief.”) Thus, affirming the Fourth Circuit, the Supreme

Court held that the district court improperly dismissed the

organization’ claims due to lack of standing. Id. at 378-79, 102

S.Ct. 1114. 

Distilling Havens to two elements, the Ninth Circuit has held

that:

an organization may satisfy the Article III of 

injury in fact if it can demonstrate: (1) frustration 

of its organizational mission; and (2) diversion of 

its resources to combat the particular housing 

discrimination in question.

Pacific Properties, 358 F.3d at 1105 (citing, inter alia, Fair

Housing of Marin v. Combs, 285 F.3d 899, 905 (9th Cir. 2002)). 

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6 The court is acutely aware that the Ninth Circuit expounded on the

issue of organizational standing, immediately after declaring that issue moot. See

El Rescate, 959 F.2d at 748 (“Plaintiffs correctly note that the issue [of the

organizational plaintiffs’ standing] is moot[.]”) Arguably then, the quoted passage

is dictum. Curiously, however, after finding El Rescate “analogous[,]” the Ninth

Circuit subsequently stated that in El Rescate it “held” that the allegations

therein were “‘enough to establish standing.’” Combs, 285 F.3d at 905 (quoting El

Rescate, 959 F.2d at 748 (other citations omitted).

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Notably, the Ninth Circuit has invoked this two prong test outside

the context of FHA discrimination. See, e.g., El Rescate Legal

Servs., Inc. v. Exec. Office of Immigration Rev., 959 F.3d 742, 748

(9th Cir. 1992) (legal services organizations “established to assist

Central American refugee clients, most of whom [we]re unable to

understand English,” who were seeking asylum and the withholding of

deportation, had standing to challenge government policy of not

providing full translation of those proceedings);6 and City of Lake

Forest, 624 F.3d at 1088-1089 (association advocating on behalf of

day laborers did not sufficiently allege standing in challenging the

enforcement of restrictions on soliciting work on public sidewalks).

Directly tracking the language of Pacific Properties, the 

defendants herein contend that the organizations have not

sufficiently pled injury in fact because they make only “broad,

unspecific, and generalized allegations that the prosecutions of

illegal immigrants for violating the [MMCP] frustrate[s] their

general mission[s] and causes them to divert resources which

purportedly would be used elsewhere.” Mot. (Doc. 68) at 4:15-18. 

Similarly tracking Pacific Properties, the organizations counter

that they have alleged “that Maricopa’s challenged policy frustrates

their mission and causes them to divert resources to assist migrants

defendants unlawfully arrest, jail and prosecute.” Resp. (Doc. 69)

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7 Presumably plaintiffs intended to cite to the amended complaint, as

that is the governing pleading. See Rhodes v. Robinson, 621 F.3d 1002, 1005 (9th

Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (“As a general rule,

when a plaintiff files an amended complaint, [t]he amended complaint supercedes the

original, the latter being treated thereafter as non-existent.”) Admittedly, the

two complaints are identical as to these particular allegations. Compare Co. (Doc.

1) at ¶¶ 5-8 with Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at ¶¶ 5-8. Obviously the court must look

only to the amended one. 

8 Defendants merely recite a few basic principles of organizational

standing. See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 4:4-13. Anticipating, incorrectly as it turns

out, that plaintiffs would rely upon Oregon Advocacy Center v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101

(9th Cir. 2003), defendants did discuss that case in relative depth. Plainly that

discussion sheds no light on this motion, however. 

The organizations did briefly discuss some cases. That discussion does not

advance their position any, though, because the organizations merely assert, with

no analysis, that the complaint’s allegations of frustration of mission and

diversion of resources, are “indistinguishable” from cases such as El Rescate where

courts have found standing. See Resp. (Doc. 69) at 9:18-19. 

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at 9:17-19 (citing “Complaint (Dkt. No. 17) at 4-7") (footnote

added). Both of these arguments suffer from the same infirmity – a

lack of any in-depth legal analysis.8 

In any event, more narrowly focusing on diversion of resources,

next the defendants emphasize that the organizations, “by their own

choosing[,]” are allegedly diverting “their limited funds” by

“provid[ing] voluntary humanitarian aide to illegal immigrants . . .

charged with violating” Arizona’s human smuggling, conspiracy and

solicitation statutes. Mot. (Doc. 68) at 3:24-4:1 (citations

omitted). Again, without explanation, defendants declare that

“[s]uch claims are insufficient and too attenuated . . . to confer”

standing upon the organizations. Id. at 4:2-3. With similar

brevity, although they did include a string cite, the organizations

retort that “defendants’ contention that [they] lack standing

because their helping non-smuggler migrants is voluntary[]” is

“devoid of merit[.]” Resp. (Doc. 69) at 9:21-22 (citing cases). 

It is nearly impossible to discern the precise contours of

defendants’ sweeping assertions that the organizations have not

adequately pled injury in fact. After carefully parsing the

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relevant case law and scrutinizing the complaint, defendants’

argument appears to be two-fold. First, evidently defendants

believe that because the complaint does not explicitly allege that

the MMCP has “frustrated” the missions of any of the organizations,

that is a critical omission. Second, by stressing the purportedly

“voluntary” nature of the organizations’ activities, the court 

surmises that defendants believe that the organizations have not

adequately pled injury in fact because they do not allege that as a

result of the MMCP, they have been “forced” to divert their

resources. Put differently, because the organizations are

purportedly acting “by their own choosing[,]” defendants believe any

injury is self-inflicted. See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 3:26. Hence, that

injury is not sufficient for standing purposes. 

These arguments are not availing because Havens and its progeny

do not require the exactitude which defendants urge is necessary for

an organization to plead injury in fact. Admittedly, the first

element of organizational injury in fact is “‘a frustration of its

mission.’” City of Lake Forest, 624 F.3d at 1088 (quoting Combs, 285

F.3d at 905). As will soon become apparent, an organization need

not strictly and literally adhere to that pleading language,

especially at the motion to dismiss stage. It also is not essential

that an organization explicitly allege a “forced” diversion of its

resources to sufficiently allege injury in fact. The purportedly

voluntary nature of the organizations’ activities here does not, in

other words, undermine their allegations of standing at this

pleading stage.

Two Ninth Circuit cases, among others, illustrate both points.

In Pacific Properties, 385 F.3d 1097, a disability rights

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organization alleged that its “‘principal purpose’” was to “‘help[]

to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities by

ensuring compliance with laws intended to provide access to housing,

public buildings, transportation, goods and services[.]’” Id. at

1105. Despite not explicitly alleging “frustration” of the

organization’s purpose, because the complaint alleged violations of

the Fair Housing Amendments Act (“FHAA”), the Ninth Circuit reasoned

“[a]ny violation of the FHAA would . . . constitute a frustration of

[the organization’s] mission.” Id. (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted). 

As to diversion of resources, in Pacific Properties the

complaint alleged that “‘in order to monitor the violations and

educate the public regarding the discrimination at issue, [the

organization] has had (and, until the discrimination is corrected,

will continue) to divert its scarce resources from other efforts to

promote awareness of-and compliance with-federal and state

accessibility laws and to benefit the disabled community in other

ways[.]’” Id. Underscoring that “at th[at] point in the

litigation,” it had to “presume that ‘general allegations embrace

those specific facts that are necessary to support a claims[,]’” the

Ninth Circuit held that the just quoted allegations were “enough to

constitute a showing of a ‘diversion of resources’ and to survive a

. . . motion” to dismiss. Id. at 1106. The Court so held even in

the absence of any allegations that the organization had been forced

to divert its resources as a result of the defendant’s alleged

disability discrimination. See also Havens, 455 U.S., at 379, 102

S.Ct. 1114 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (although

organization did not allege that it was forced to divert its

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resources, it sufficiently alleged injury in fact by alleging that

it had to “devote significant resources to identify and counteract 

. . . defendant’s . . . discriminatory . . . practices[]”).

Along these same lines, in Combs, 285 F.3d 899, an organization

whose mission was to “promot[e] equal housing opportunities[]” sued

an apartment complex owner for illegal race discrimination in

housing. Id. at 901. The Combs complaint alleged that one of the

organization’s “activities in combating illegal housing

discrimination [wa]s to provide ‘outreach and education to the

community regarding fair housing.’” Id. at 905 (quoting Complaint, 

¶ 5). “[A]s a result of defendant’s discriminatory practices,” the

organization further alleged that “it . . . ‘suffered injury to its

ability to carry out its purposes . . . [and] economic losses in

staff pay, in funds expended in support of volunteer services, and

in the inability to undertake other efforts to end unlawful housing

practices.’” Id. at 905 (quoting Complaint, ¶ 5). 

Based upon those allegations, the district court found that the

organization alleged “that defendant’s discrimination against

African Americans ha[d] caused [the organization] to suffer injury

to its ability to provide outreach and education (i.e.,

counseling).” Id. The Ninth Circuit did not disagree, holding that

the organization had “direct standing to sue because it showed a

drain on its resources from both a diversion of resources and

frustration of its mission.” Id.; see also Comm. for Immigrant

Rights of Sonoma County v. County of Sonoma, 644 F.Supp.2d 1177,

1185 (citations omitted); 1195 (N.D.Cal. 2009) (organization with a

“mission of opposing anti-immigration policies[,]” which “divert[ed]

time and resources from pursuing “other related goals . . . to

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campaign against defendants’ practice of “enforc[ing] civil

immigration laws against Latino[s] . . . in violation of their

constitutional and statutory rights[]” adequately pled standing);

Gay-Straight Alliance Network v. Visalia Unified Sch. Dist., 262 

F.Supp.2d 1088, 1105 (E.D.Cal. 2001) (organization dedicated to

eliminating homophobia sufficiently alleged “injury in fact to

confer direct standing[]” where its goals were “directly frustrated

by Defendants’ alleged policies of transferring gay and lesbian

students” and ignoring safety issues and discrimination complaints

by those students, and where it “committed resources to advance

goals thwarted by the [defendants’] alleged policies”); and National

Coalition Gov’t of Burma v. Unocal, Inc., 176 F.R.D. 329, 342

(C.D.Cal. 1997) (labor organization that “diverted funds from [its]

education programs to provide relief to refugee members who were

forced by” defendant’s joint venturer or implied partner “to work

clearing land and constructing . . . infrastructure . . . alleged a

cognizable injury”). 

Before discussing whether the present complaint satisfies the

injury in fact pleading standards of Havens and its progeny, it is

necessary to clarify the standard of review. This need is

particularly acute given defendants’ argument that the

organization’s allegations of injury in fact are too “generalized[]”

to survive this motion to dismiss. Mot. (Doc. 68) at 4:15. In

stressing the purportedly “generalized” nature of those allegations,

defendants are overlooking the relatively lenient standards

governing this motion to dismiss. 

The organizations, “as the part[ies] asserting federal

jurisdiction when it is challenged,” must “make the showings

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9 With the exception of Friendly House, the other three plaintiff

organizations appear to be asserting claims on behalf of their respective members,

as well as on their own behalf. See Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at 5:2-7, ¶ 5; at 5:23-27,

¶ 6; and at 6:10-18, ¶ 7. However, because defendants are not raising the issue

of “associational” or “representational” standing as to the members, the court is

similarly restricting its analysis to organizational standing. Accordingly, the

standing discussion herein encompasses only the organizations, and not their

members. 

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required for standing.” See DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S.

332 n. 3, 126 S.Ct. 1854, 164 L.Ed.2d 589 (2006). But, that burden

is not onerous at this stage. That is because “[o]n a motion to

dismiss for lack of standing, a district court must accept as true

all material allegations in the complaint, and must construe the

complaint in the nonmovant’s favor.” Chandler v. State Farm Mut.

Auto. Ins. Co., 598 F.3d 1115, 1121 (9th Cir. 2010) (citation

omitted). Moreover, “[w]hen, as here, the plaintiff[s] defend[]

against a motion to dismiss at the pleading stage, ‘general factual

allegations of injury resulting from the defendant[s]’ conduct may

suffice[.]’” See Oregon v. Legal Services Corp., 552 F.3d 965, 969

(9th Cir. 2009) (quoting, inter alia, Lujan, 504 U.S., at 561, 112

S.Ct. 2130). That is because the court “‘presume[s] that general

allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to

support the claim.’” Id. (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S., at 561, 112 S.Ct.

2130). With these principles firmly in mind, the court will examine

the sufficiency of the organizations’ injury in fact allegations.

In the present case, there are four plaintiff organizations:

(1) We Are America/Somos America Coalition of Arizona (“WAA/SAC”);

(2) the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum (“AHCF”); (3) the League of

United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”); and (4) Friendly House. 

Each9

 minimally alleges that “[t]he MMCP is diverting the[ir]

limited resources, thus making their work and achievement of their

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goals more difficult and costly.” Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at 5:2-4, 

¶ 5; 5:23-25, ¶ 6; 6:9-12, ¶ 7; and at 6:24-26, ¶ 8. With slightly

more specificity, the organizations further allege that they “are

expending time and resources delivering services to migrants

detained [or “incarcerated”] in Maricopa County jail[s] . . .

pursuant to the [MMCP].” Id. at 5:5-7, ¶ 5; 5:23-25, ¶ 6; at 6:10-

12, ¶ 7; and at 6:24-26, ¶ 8 (footnote added). 

Despite these similarities, the organizations’ allegations

differ in terms of defining their respective missions. With the

exception of LULAC, there is a common thread though. WAA/SAC, AHCF

and Friendly House all provide social services to immigrants. 

“[D]eliver[y] [of] social services and humanitarian assistance to

migrants[]” is among WAC/SAC’s many “purposes[.]” Am. Compl. (Doc.

45) at 5:1-2, ¶ 5, 4:25; ¶5. Similarly, as part of its “mission”

AHCF allegedly “provide[s] needy Hispanics charitable assistance.” 

Id. at 5:15, ¶ 6; 5:21-22, ¶ 6. Likewise, Friendly House alleges

that its “purposes include providing social and legal services to

immigrants, including counseling and therapy for immigrants who have

suffered traumatic experiences or abuse, and legal assistance to

immigrants applying for lawful immigration status.” Id. at 6:2-24,

¶ 8. In fact, Friendly House alleges that it provided such services

to two Mexican nationals, who were “arrested, incarcerated, and

punished pursuant to” the MMCP, and who were formerly plaintiffs in

this action. Id. at 6:27-7:3, ¶ 8.

In terms of providing such services to those detained or

incarcerated pursuant to the MMCP (“the MMCP immigrants”), WAA/SAC

specifically alleges that “the unlawful [MMCP]” makes it “more 

difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than delivering like

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services to undetained and uncharged migrants.” Id. at 5:1-2, ¶ 5;

5:7-9, ¶ 5. AHCF alleges as well that “delivering services to

incarcerated migrants is difficult, costly and time-consuming.” Id.

at 5:27-28, ¶ 6. Additionally, WAA/SAC and AHFC both allege that

they are “providing services to migrants detained under the [MMCP]

that [they] do[] not normally provide undetained migrants, including

cash to ameliorate the hardships of confinement.” Id. at 5:11-13, 

¶ 5; at 5:28-6:2, ¶ 6. 

Taken together and bearing in mind that defendants’ motion to

dismiss is a facial attack to standing, the court finds that as to

WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House, the complaint’s allegations

comport with the central teaching of Havens. That is, they

sufficiently allege that the purportedly unlawful MMCP “perceptibly

impairs” the ability of those three organizations to provide social

services to immigrants who have not been charged, detained or

incarcerated pursuant to the MMCP. To the extent, as alleged, that

those three organizations are expending resources to provide

services to the MMCP immigrants, it necessarily follows that they

have fewer resources to provide services to immigrants whom the MMCP

does not impact. As in Havens, these “concrete and demonstrable

injur[ies] to the . . . activities” of WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly

House, “with the consequent drain on the[ir] resources . . .

constitute far more than simply a setback to the . . . abstract

societal interests” of those organizations. See Havens, 455 U.S.,

at 368, 102 S.Ct. 1114. 

The fact, as defendants stress, that the organizations are

acting “by their own choosing[,]” i.e., any purported injury is

self-inflicted, does not preclude a finding that they have

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adequately pled injury in fact. See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 3:24 and 26. 

Of course, an organization “cannot manufacture [an] injury by

incurring litigation costs or simply choosing to spend money fixing

a problem that otherwise would not affect the organization at all.” 

City of Lake Forest, 624 F.3d at 1088 (citation omitted). Instead,

the organization “must show that it would have suffered some other

injury if it had not diverted resources to counteracting the

problem.” Id. at 1088. Illustrating, the Ninth Circuit pointed to

Havens wherein the “housing discrimination threatened to make it

more difficult for [the organization] to counsel people on where

they might live if [it] didn’t spend money fighting” that

discrimination. Id. (citation omitted). From the Ninth Circuit’s

perspective, in Havens “[t]he organization could not avoid suffering

one injury or the other, and therefore had standing to sue.” Id.

(citing Pacific Properties, 358 F.3d at 1105 (organization “had 

. . . to divert its scarce resources from other efforts”); El

Rescate, 959 F.3d at 748 (challenged policy “require[d] the

organizations to expend resources . . . they otherwise would spend

in other ways”).

In the present case, the defendants have not pointed to any

allegations in the complaint, and the court discerns none,

suggesting that the organizations are somehow “manufacturing” an

injury by incurring litigation costs. Further, given that as part

of their missions WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House all provide

social services to immigrants, it can hardly be said that by

spending money to assist immigrants affected by the MMCP, those

organizations are “spending money to fix a problem that otherwise

would not affect the[m] at all.” See id. at 1088 (citation

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omitted). Indeed, much like Havens, the MMCP is “threaten[ing] to

make it more difficult” for those three organizations to provide

social services to those not affected by the MMCP, if they do not

“spend money fighting” that allegedly unlawful Policy. See id.

(citation omitted). 

Moreover, to the extent that the defendants are arguing that

the organizations’ voluntary diversion of resources means they have

not alleged an injury in fact, the court disagrees. In Equal Rights

Ctr. v. Post Props., Inc., 657 F.Supp.2d 197 (D.D.C. 2009), the

district court took the same position as the defendants herein. It

held that the plaintiff organization “could not establish standing

because it chose to redirect its resources to investigate

[defendant’s] allegedly discriminatory practices.” Equal Rights

Ctr. v. Post Props., Inc., 633 F.3d 1136, 1140 (D.C. Cir. 2011)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis in

original). The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals explained that that

district court holding was erroneous because an organization’s

voluntary or willful diversion of its resources “does not

automatically mean that it cannot suffer an injury in fact

sufficient to confer standing.” Id. 

The D.C. Circuit pointed out that in two of its earlier

organizational standing decisions, the plaintiffs “chose to redirect

their resources to counteract the effects of the defendants’

allegedly unlawful acts; they could have chosen instead not to

respond.” Id. As the Court was quick to stress, “[i]n neither case

did [its] standing analysis depend on the voluntariness or

involuntariness of the [organizations’] expenditures.” Id.

“Instead, [the Court] focused on whether [the organizations]

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undertook the expenditures in response to, and to counteract, the

effects of the defendant’s alleged discrimination rather than in

anticipation of litigation.” Id. 

Certainly WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House could have chosen

not to respond and stood silently by in the wake of the allegedly

unlawful MMCP. The fact that they chose to act by expending time

and money to “respon[d] to, and . . . counteract . . . the effects

of” the allegedly unlawful MMCP, further supports this court’s view

that those three organizations have sufficiently plead injury in

fact at this motion to dismiss stage. See id. 

The procedural posture of this case bolsters that conclusion. 

The fact that this is a facial attack on the sufficiency of the

complaint’s standing allegations, compels the court to reiterate

that it must presume that the general allegations that “[t]he MMCP

is diverting the limited resources” of WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly

House, “thus making their work and achievement of their goals more

difficult and costly[,]” Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at 5:2-4, ¶ 5; at

5:23-25, ¶ 6; and at 6:24-26, ¶ 8, “embrace[ ]those specific facts

that are necessary to support” their standing claim. See Legal

Services Corp., 552 F.3d at 969 (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted). 

Because it is a closer call than with the other organizations,

until now the court, deliberately, has not considered the

sufficiency of the injury in fact allegations as to LULAC. Like

WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House, LULAC generally alleges that “the

MMCP is diverting [its] limited resources . . . , thus making [its]

work and achievement of their goals more difficult and costly.” Am.

Compl. (Doc. 45) at 6:10-12, ¶ 7. Also like those other three

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organizations, LULAC claims to be “expending time and resources

delivering services to migrants detained in Maricopa County jail

facilities pursuant to the [MMCP].” Id. at 6:12-14. In particular,

LULAC alleges that its “members have visited migrants detained under

the [Policy] to offer them encouragement and moral support, and have

deposited money into migrants’ jail accounts to help them

communicate with their families while they are incarcerated.” Id.

at 6:14-18, ¶ 7. 

At least from a pleading standpoint, LULAC is in a markedly

different situation than the other three organizations. Mostly that

is because unlike WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House, LULAC does not

explicitly allege that “[i]ts primary goals” include providing

social services to immigrants. See id. at 6:809, ¶ 7. Rather,

LULAC sweepingly alleges that “its primary goals include promoting

and protecting the legal, political, social, and cultural interests

of Latinos in the United States.” Id. at 6:7-9, ¶ 7 (emphasis

added). Even under the relatively lenient standards of review here,

the complaint’s allegations as to LULAC amount to nothing more than

“simply a setback to [its] abstract societal interests[.]” See

Havens, 455 U.S., at 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114. Such an “abstract”

interest, as Havens made clear, is not the type of “concrete and

demonstrable injury” which is necessary for an organization to

allege that it has “suffered [an] injury in fact.” See id.

(citation and footnote omitted). Thus, defendants are entitled to

dismissal with respect to LULAC because it has not adequately pled

organizational standing. 

b. “Causal Connection” & “Redressability”

Despite arguing that dismissal is “appropriate” because

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plaintiffs do not “allege facts establishing the ‘irreducible’

elements required for legal standing[,]” defendants’ motion only

addresses the first of those elements – - injury in fact. See Mot.

(Doc. 68) at 3:20-21 (citation omitted). Perhaps defendants are not

challenging the other two elements of constitutional standing,

causation and redressability, because the complaint adequately

alleges both.

At least on the face of it, the complaint sufficiently alleges

a causal connection between the organizations’ injuries and the

MMCP. The organizations’ injuries (except for LULAC), as discussed

above, are “fairly trace[able]” to the MMCP “and not . . . th[e]

result [of] the independent action of some third party not before

the court.” See Winn, 131 S.Ct. at 1142 (internal quotation marks

and citations omitted). It is also “likely, as opposed to [being]

merely speculative,” that the organizations’ alleged injuries

(again, except for LULAC) “will be redressed by a favorable

decision” herein, i.e. relief preventing the further implementation

of the MMCP or a finding that the MMCP is unconstitutional. See id.

In sum, at this juncture, the court finds that the complaint

adequately alleges organizational Article III standing as to

WAA/SAC, AHFC and Friendly House, but not as to LULAC. 

c. Compliance

Defendants conclude their discussion of organizational standing

by stating that “any alleged future harm by the organizational

Plaintiffs can be avoided if illegal aliens simply comply with”

Arizona’s human smuggling, conspiracy and solicitation statutes. 

Mot. (Doc. 68) at 5:21-23. To support this assertion, defendants

quote from Jones v. City of Los Angeles, 444 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir.

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10 Even though Jones was vacated as a result of a settlement agreement and

may not be cited as binding precedent, Bell v. City of Boise, 2011 WL 2650204, at

*3 n. 1 (D.Idaho July 6, 2011), that vacatur did not affect the reasoning therein.

Accordingly, this court “may consider [Jones] as persuasive authority” in

addressing the issues raised herein. See Anderson v. City of Portland, 2009 WL

2386056, at *4 n. 1 (D.Or. 2009) (citing DHX, Inc. v. Allianz AGF MAT, Ltd., 425

F.3d 1169, 1176 (9th Cir. 2005) (“But at minimum, a vacated opinion still carries

informational and perhaps even persuasive or precedential value.”) (Beezer, J.,

concurring); McKenzie v. Day, 57 F.3d 1493, 1494 (9th Cir. 1995) (utilizing vacated

opinion as persuasive authority and adopting analysis)).

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2006), vacated by 505 F.3d 1006 (9th Cir. 2007):10 “When a plaintiff

‘seeks to enjoin criminal law enforcement activities against him,

his standing . . . depends on his ability to avoid engaging in the

illegal conduct in the future.’” Id. at 5:24-26 (quoting Jones, 444

F.3d at 1126) (other citation omitted). By selectively quoting from

Jones, defendants are overlooking that Court’s further recognition

that “[a]voiding illegal conduct may be impossible when the

underlying criminal statute is unconstitutional.” Jones, 444 F.3d

at 1127 (citing, O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 496, 94 S.Ct.

669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974) (noting that plaintiffs may have had

standing had they alleged that the laws under which they feared

prosecution in the future were unconstitutional); Perez v. Ledesma,

401 U.S. 82, 101-02, 91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971) (Brennan,

J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting prior

aggressive prosecution under an allegedly unconstitutional law as a

factor for finding sufficient controversy for declaratory relief)). 

As the organizations are quick to respond, that is exactly what

they are contending – “that [the MMCP] is unlawful[.] Resp. (Doc.

69) at 11:11 (emphasis in original). Hence, the organizations 

further contend that “they are under no obligation to avoid running

afoul of” the “unlawful [MMCP].” Id. at 11:11-12 (emphasis in

original). At this point, the organizations have the stronger

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position. 

According to the complaint, Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies

stopped the vehicles in which the former individual plaintiffs were

traveling. See, e.g., Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at ¶¶ 25 and 26; at 14,

¶ 30. Further, allegedly the deputies detained and interrogated

those individuals, despite not “develop[ing] any reason whatsoever

to believe that plaintiffs . . . were themselves alien smugglers, or

that any of them were transporting or had conspired to transport

others for gain.” Id. at ¶¶ 27 and 32. On a broader scale, the

complaint also alleges that “in furtherance of the [MMCP], the

Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies stopped, detained, and arrested

54 individuals on suspicion of conspiring to transport themselves in

violation of § 13-2319.” Id. at ¶ 41. 

In nearly every instance, the complaint alleges that “said

stops, detentions, and arrests were conducted without probable cause

to believe that any of the persons seized had committed or were

committing a cognizable criminal offense because nowhere does

Arizona law make it a crime to conspire to transport oneself in

violation of § 13-2319.” Id. (emphasis added). Basically then, the

complaint alleges that the individuals did not engage in any

unlawful behavior so as to warrant the stops, detentions and arrests

complained of therein. So construed, the complaint alleges

“plaintiffs need not engage in unlawful conduct to become subject to

the unlawful practices[,]” i.e., the MMCP, “they seek to enjoin.” 

See Armstrong v. Davis, 275 F.3d 849, 866 (9th Cir. 2001) (disabled

prisoners and parolees had standing to challenge discriminatory

parole hearing procedures). Thus, because the complaint alleges

that the MMCP is unlawful, standing is not dependent upon

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11 The court’s limited analysis of this compliance issue mirrors the

narrow focus of that defense argument. Because defendants did not squarely raise

the issue of whether the complaint pleads a sufficient likelihood of future injury

to establish standing to seek equitable remedies, the court leaves such issues for

another day.

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plaintiffs’ ability in the future to avoid engaging in supposedly

unlawful conduct.11 

3. Taxpayers’ Standing

The amended complaint, as did the original, alleges that four

of the five taxpayer plaintiffs “reside[] in and pay[] taxes to

defendant MARICOPA COUNTY and to the State of Arizona.” Am. Compl.

(Doc. 45) at 8, ¶¶ 11; and 13-15. A fifth taxpayer, Steve Gallardo,

allegedly “resides in and pays taxes to the State of Arizona.” Id.

at 8, ¶ 12:12-13 (emphasis added). Nowhere in the complaint does it

allege that Gallardo is a taxpayer in any county, much less

Maricopa. Regardless of their taxpayer status, these five

plaintiffs uniformly allege that “[d]efendants are using . . . taxes

paid by [them] to” implement the “illegal [MMCP].” Id. They also

identically “challenge[] the [MMCP] as an illegal diversion” or

“illegal expenditure of taxpayer funds.” Id. at 8, ¶¶ 11-15

(emphasis added). 

Municipal taxpayers, as discussed herein, are subject to

different rules of standing than are state taxpayers. Therefore,

the court will separately address plaintiff Gallardo’s asserted

standing as an Arizona state taxpayer. Prior to addressing the

merits, the court must address the possible impact of We Are America

I upon the issue of the taxpayers’ standing.

When it comes to municipal taxpayer standing, this court is not

writing on an entirely clean slate. Even prior to remand, that

issue had arisen in this litigation. Lack of standing was one of

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12 See Resp. (Doc. 69) at 2:16.

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three dismissal arguments defendants proffered in We Are America I. 

Ultimately, however, “[b]ecause it appear[ed] that Younger

abstention may be required,” the court expressly found that it “need

not address questions of Article III standing at th[at] time.” We

Are America I, 2007 WL 2775134, at *8. Even so, the court did

“note[] that the case could not be dismissed in its entirety solely

on the basis of standing.” Id. at *8 n. 3. 

Aware that that isolated comment “may not constitute a formal,

dispositive ruling,” plaintiffs are not explicitly invoking the law

of the case doctrine. Resp. (Doc. 69) at 2:7 (emphasis added). 

That doctrine “posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law,

that decision should continue to govern the same issues in

subsequent stages in the same case[.]” United States v. Park Place

Assoc., Ltd., 563 F.3d 907, 918 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted). Nonetheless, because “defendants offer

no reason for the Court to recede from” what plaintiffs characterize

as that “clear acknowledgment of plaintiff taxpayers’ standing[,]”

they strongly imply that there is no need to revisit that issue now. 

See Resp. (Doc. 69) at 2:8-9. 

Plaintiffs construe the pending dismissal motion as doing

“little more than reiterat[ing] [defendants’] earlier argument that

the taxpayer plaintiffs lack standing because they have not alleged

a “‘direct dollar-and cents injury’” flowing from the arrest and

prosecution of non-smuggler migrants.” Id. at 3:12-16 (citation

omitted). The repetitive nature of defendants’ taxpayer standing

argument is significant for two reasons, according to plaintiffs. 

First, those defense arguments were “answered”12 in We Are America I

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when this court wrote:

For instance, the municipal taxpayer plaintiffs 

have sufficiently pled the injury of improper 

expenditures of municipal funds. See Cammack v.

Waihee, 932 F.2d 765, 770 (9th Cir. 1991) . . . 

Plaintiffs have alleged that they object to Defendant

 Maricopa County's use of tax funds for the arrest,

 detainment, prosecution, and imprisonment of migrants 

for conspiracy to smuggle themselves in violation of 

Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-2319. . . . While Defendants 

may be correct that arrests, detainments, and 

prosecutions will not increase the fixed salary 

expenditures for the employees carrying out those 

duties, the same cannot be said for the additional 

incremental costs of housing and feeding individuals 

in the county jails. Therefore, Plaintiffs have pled 

sufficient facts to demonstrate their standing as municipal taxpayers.

We Are America I, 2007 WL 2775134, at *8 n. 3 (emphasis added). 

Second, plaintiffs maintain that “[t]he Court’s “view remains

sound.” Resp. (Doc. 69) at 3:12. Defendants’ motion is silent on

the impact, if any, of We Are America I on the issue of taxpayer

standing herein.

A comparison of defendants’ taxpayer standing arguments herein

and those in their We Are America I reply shows that there is a

substantial overlap between the two. Compare Mot. (Doc. 68) at 6:16

- 7:7 with Reply (Doc. 42) at 3:27-5:2. That overlap does not,

however, persuade this court to now simply adopt wholesale, without

any further consideration, its earlier comments regarding municipal

taxpayer standing. Indeed, there are compelling substantive and

procedural reasons for squarely addressing that issue anew. 

One reason for revisiting the issue of taxpayer standing is

that the court’s previous comments pertained only to municipal

taxpayers; it did not mention state taxpayer standing. However, one

of the five taxpayers herein, Mr. Gallardo, alleges only that he is

a state taxpayer. As such, that plaintiff is subject to different

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rules of standing, and the court’s prior comments had absolutely no

bearing on him. 

The court also cannot ignore the procedural posture of this

case. It is on remand from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, with

an explicit instruction to determine taxpayer as well as

organizational standing. See We Are America III, 386 Fed.Appx. at

*1 (emphasis added) (“On remand, the district court must still

determine whether the organizational and taxpayer plaintiffs have

standing to pursue their claims.”) Additionally, due to that remand

this court expressly invited further motions. See Doc. 67. Under

these circumstances this court is not bound by its prior remarks in

a footnote.

Moreover, this court’s comments in We Are America I regarding

municipal taxpayer standing can fairly be described as “casual[,]”

having been “uttered in passing without due consideration of the

alternatives[.]” See Gonzalez v. Arizona, 624 F.3d 1162, 1190 (9th

Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), reh’g en

banc granted by 2011 WL 1651242 (9th Cir. Apr. 27, 2011). 

Statements such as this “are not binding precedent.” Id. (internal

quotation marks and citations omitted). In fact, this court’s

earlier statements certainly can be deemed dicta, “hav[ing] no

preclusive effect.” See Rebel Oil Co., Inc. v. Atlantic Richfield

Co., 146 F.3d 1088, 1093 (9th Cir. 1998) (citation and internal

quotation marks omitted). Necessarily then, in We Are America I

this court did not actually decide the issues of municipal and state

taxpayer standing. In short, there are ample reasons for this court

to take a fresh look at the taxpayer standing issues raised herein. 

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13 For the sake of brevity, “taxpayers” as used in this section shall be

read as referring to the four taxpayers, Kyrsten Sinema, Steve Lujan, Cecilia

Menjivar, and LaDawn Haglund, who allege, among other things, that they are

Maricopa County taxpayers. 

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a. Municipal Taxpayers13

A quick perusal of the complaint readily shows that the County

taxpayers are “challeng[ing] the [MMCP] as an illegal expenditure of

taxpayer funds[,]” and that allegedly defendants are using those

“funds . . . to arrest, detain and incarcerate migrants pursuant to

the [MMCP].” See Am. Compl. (Doc. 45) at 8-9, ¶¶ 11; 13-15. It is

also readily apparent that these taxpayers are not alleging any

specific monetary amount which the County has spent implementing the

MMCP. 

Primarily relying upon Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Hawthorne,

342 U.S. 429, 72 S.Ct. 394, 96 L.Ed. 475 (1952), defendants argue 

that these taxpayers lack standing because they do not allege a

“‘direct dollars-and-cents injury.’” Mot. (Doc. 68) at 6:23. 

Defendants similarly contend that the taxpayers do not “allege any

set of facts showing a direct injury or a ‘measurable appropriation’

of tax funds by Defendants in their effort to enforce the [MMCP].” 

Id. at 6:24-25 (footnote omitted). Then, depicting the complaint as

making “broad and generalized allegation[s] of [taxpayer] harm,”

defendants strongly imply that more is required, i.e., allegations

of “a specific, measurable amount[.]” Id. at 6, n. 1; and at 7, n.

2. Defendants simply make these broad declarations without 

explaining why, supposedly, the “[C]ounty taxpayers[’] . . . claim

to standing is not persuasive.” Id. at 6:14-15. 

In rejoinder, the taxpayers maintain that their standing

“simply requires the ‘injury’ of an allegedly improper expenditure

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of municipal funds.’” Resp. (Doc. 69) at 4:17-18 (quoting Cammack,

932 F.2d at 770). By “alleg[ing] that defendants are misusing

[Maricopa County] taxes to jail and prosecute an identifiable class

of non-smuggler migrants[,]” the taxpayers argue that they have

sufficiently alleged an injury for standing purposes. See id. at

6:7-8. The taxpayers strongly dispute that they must “allege . . .

the actual number of tax dollars the County has spent to arrest and

prosecute non-smuggler migrants; and . . . the amount such

expenditures have increased [their] taxes.” Id. at 3:17-20. As for

“measurable expenditures[,]” plaintiffs point out that defendants

“wholly fail to explain why the cost of jailing and prosecuting nonsmuggler migrants is not measurable.” Id. at 5:19-20 (emphasis in

original). Thus, from the taxpayers’ perspective, they have

sufficiently pled standing. 

i. Injury

To adequately plead Article III standing, the taxpayers herein,

like the organizations, must allege injury, causation and

redressability. See Arakaki v. Lingle, 477 F.3d 1048, 1062 (9th

Cir. 2007). The defendants narrowly confine their lack of standing

argument to the injury requirement, as they did with the

organizations. Accordingly, that will be the primary focus of this

court’s analysis as well. 

“Absent special circumstances, . . . , standing cannot be based

on a plaintiff’s mere status as a taxpayer.” Winn, 131 S.Ct. at

1442. “The doctrinal basis” for this “rule against taxpayer

standing” is Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67

L.Ed. 1078 (1923) (decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon), the

starting point for any analysis of taxpayer standing. Id. at 1443. 

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In rejecting the federal taxpayer’s argument that she had standing

“because she had an interest in the Government Treasury and because

the allegedly unconstitutional expenditure of Government funds would

affect her personal tax liability[,]” id., the Frothingham Court

focused on the nature of the claimed injury. The “‘effect upon

future taxation, of any payments out of the funds,’ was too ‘remote,

fluctuating and uncertain,” to afford a basis for judicial

intervention, the Court reasoned. Id. (quoting Frothingham at 487,

43 S.Ct. 597). Continuing, the Supreme Court recognized that the

federal taxpayer’s “interest in the moneys of the treasury . . . is

shared with millions of others, [and] is comparatively minute and

indeterminable[.]” Frothingham, 262 U.S., at 487, 42 S.Ct. 597. 

Finally, the Court found that “[t]he administration of any statute,

likely to produce additional taxation to be imposed upon a vast

number of taxpayers, the extent of whose several liability is

indefinite and constantly changing, is essentially a matter of

public and not of individual concern.” Id. 

Drawing a distinction between federal and municipal taxpayers,

the Frothingham Court “noted with approval the standing of municipal

residents to enjoin the ‘illegal use of the moneys of a municipal

corporation[’].” DaimlerChrysler, 547 U.S., at 349, 126 S.Ct. 1854

(quoting Frothingham, 262 U.S., at 486, 487, 43 S.Ct. 597) (other

citation omitted). The Supreme Court in Frothingham offered the

following rationale: 

The interest of a taxpayer of a municipality

in the application of its moneys is direct and 

immediate and the remedy by injunction to prevent their 

misuse is not inappropriate. It is upheld by a large

number of state cases and is the rule of this court 

. . . The reasons which support the extension of the 

equitable remedy to a single taxpayer in such cases 

are based upon the peculiar relation of the corporate 

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14 The Supreme Court “has repeatedly construed Doremus as a state-taxpayer

case.” See Smith v. Jefferson County Bd. of School Com’rs, 641 F.3d 197, 211-212

(6th Cir. 2011) (citing cases) (en banc), petition for cert. filed, 79 USLW 3673

(May 12, 2011) (NO. 10-1402). Yet, the taxpayers’ status in Doremus is not so

clear-cut. See id. at 227-228 (Rogers, J., dissenting). One of the two taxpayers

in Doremus, was a New Jersey borough taxpayer challenging the actions of the

defendant borough school board in complying with a state statute. The other was

a state taxpayer. Not only that, it is possible to read Doremus as referring to

municipal taxpayer standing. See id. at 228. 

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taxpayer to the corporation which is not without some 

resemblance to that subsisting between stockholder and 

private corporation. 

Frothingham, 262 U.S., at 486-487, 43 S.Ct. 597). 

In considering Frothingham’s prohibition on taxpayer standing,

the Supreme Court in Doremus, 342 U.S. 429, 72 S.Ct. 394, was

faced with a taxpayers’14 challenge to a state statute providing for

the reading of Bible verses at the start of each public school day. 

Acknowledging the availability of “taxpayer[] action[s] to restrain

unconstitutional acts which result in direct pecuniary injury,” the

Doremus Court reiterated that a taxpayer “must be able to show, not

only that the statute is invalid, but that he has sustained or is

immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as a result

of its enforcement[.]” Id. at 434 (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted) (emphasis added). The taxpayer cannot “merely

[claim] that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people

generally.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

The Doremus Court held that the taxpayers lacked standing because

their action was not “a good-faith pocketbook” challenge to the

state statute. Id. 

The Doremus taxpayers did not satisfy that standard because the

litigated grievance, i.e., the reading of Bible verses, was “not a

direct dollars-and-cents injury but [wa]s a religious difference.” 

Id. The taxpayers did “not charge[] . . . concede[] nor prove[]

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15 The Ninth Circuit is not alone. See, e.g., ACLU–NJ v. Twp. of Wall,

246 F.3d 258, 262 (3d Cir. 2001); Koenick v. Felton, 190 F.3d 259, 263 (4th Cir.

1999); Clay v. Fort Wayne Cmty. Sch., 76 F.3d 873, 879 (7th Cir. 1996); D.C. Common

Cause v. District of Columbia, 858 F.2d 1, 4 (D.C.Cir. 1988). Questioning this

line of cases, including Cammack, the Sixth Circuit has indicated that the

“reasons” given by these Courts “for using Doremus’s language have not been

particularly convincing.” See Jefferson County, 641 F.3d at 212. Abiding by Ninth

Circuit precedent, there is no need for the court to enter into that fray. 

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that the brief interruption in the day’s schooling caused by

compliance with the statute adds cost to the school expenses or

varies by more than an incomputable scintilla the economy of the

day’s work.” Id. at 431. Consequently, the taxpayers in Doremus

did not “possess[] . . . the requisite financial interest that is,

or is threatened to be, injured by the unconstitutional conduct.” 

Id. at 435, 72 S.Ct. 394. Hence, any “decision on the merits would

have been merely advisory.” Id. at 434-435, 72 S.Ct. 394.

 In Cammack, supra, state and municipal taxpayers brought an

Establishment Clause challenge to the creation of a Good Friday

state holiday. For the first time, the Ninth Circuit was forced to

address the “injury requirements . . . for municipal” as opposed to

state “taxpayer standing.” Cammack, 932 F.2d at 770. The Court

readily found “that the Doremus requirement of a pocketbook injury

applies to municipal taxpayer standing, as well as to state taxpayer

standing.15 Id. Noting, as do the taxpayers in this action, that

several other Circuits “have made clear that municipal taxpayer

standing is only available when there is an expenditure of municipal

funds challenged[,]” the Cammack Court likewise “conclude[d] that

municipal taxpayer standing simply requires the ‘injury’ of an

allegedly improper expenditure of municipal funds[.]” Id.

(citations omitted)(emphasis added). “In fact,” the Ninth Circuit

pointed out, “even those who have taken a dimmer view of the breadth

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of state taxpayer standing than this court have recognized that

municipal taxpayer standing requires no more injury than an

allegedly improper municipal expenditure.” Id. (citing cases). 

Turning to the issue of taxpayer “‘pocketbook’ injury[,]” the

Cammack Court found that the taxpayer’s “allegations satisf[ied] the

Doremus pocketbook injury requirement for standing[]” because the

taxpayers “set forth their status as state and municipal taxpayers

and specifically . . . stated the amount of funds appropriated and

allegedly spent by the taxing governmental entities as a result of

the Good Friday holiday.” Id. at 771. 

The government argued in Cammack, to no avail, that the

taxpayers did not have standing “because the bare declaration of

Good Friday, as a state holiday does not, standing alone, involve

any expenditures of tax revenues.” Id. Rejecting this contention,

the Court explained that “[l]egislative enactments are not the only

government activity which the taxpayer may have standing to sue.” 

Id. Then, based upon the complaint’s assertion that the state law

“proclaims a state holiday in violation of the federal and state

constitutions, and that state and municipal tax revenues fund the

paid holiday for government employees[,]” the Ninth Circuit held

that “this allegation identifies an expenditure of public funds

sufficiently related to [the taxpayers’] constitutional claim.” Id.

So, ultimately the determinative factor in Cammack was not the

monetary amount alleged, but that the state and municipal taxpayers

“asserted the necessary injury – actual expenditure of tax

dollars[.]” Id. at 772 (emphasis added). 

Applying Doremus to a municipal taxpayer, the Ninth Circuit

reached the opposite result in Doe v. Madison School Dist. No. 321,

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177 F.3d 789 (9th Cir. 1999). The differing results between Cammack

and Madison School are easily justified based upon the fundamental

difference between the claimed injuries. The taxpayer in Madison

School alleged that in violation of the Establishment Clause, the

school district had a policy of allowing prayers at its high school

graduation ceremonies. Unlike the alleged injury in Cammack, where

state and city tax revenues funded the paid Good Friday holiday for

government employees, the Madison School taxpayer could not

“identif[y] [any] tax dollars spent solely on the graduation prayer,

which [wa]s the only activity that she challenge[d].” Id. at 794. 

The taxpayer even “acknowledge[d] affirmatively that [t]he prayers 

. . . cost the state no additional expense.” Id. (internal

quotation marks omitted). 

Further, despite “alleg[ing] that defendants spent tax dollars

on renting a hall, printing graduation programs, buying decorations,

and hiring security guards[,]” the Court held that those

“expenditures [did] not establish taxpayer standing[,]” because they

were “ordinary costs of graduation that the school would pay whether

or not the ceremony included a prayer.” Id.; see also Cole v.

Oroville Union High Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1092, 1100 n. 5 (9th Cir.

2000) (no taxpayer standing where plaintiffs did not “identif[y] tax

dollars spent solely on the valedictory speech or on the District’s

decision to refuse to allow sectarian speech at its graduation

ceremonies[]”). The taxpayer in Madison School thus could not

“demonstrate that the government spends ‘a measurable appropriation

or disbursement of [public] funds occasioned solely by the

activities complained of.’” See id. at 794 (quoting Doremus, 342

U.S., at 434, 72 S.Ct. 394) (other citations omitted). 

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As the foregoing amply shows, “improper expenditure of public

funds” is the crux of any claim that a municipal taxpayer satisfies

the injury in fact prong of constitutional standing. See, e.g.,

Cammack, 932 F.2d at 770. As recently as 2008, the Ninth Circuit

has reaffirmed this view. See Barnes-Wallace v. City of San Diego,

530 F.3d 776, 786 (9th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted), cert. denied,

130 S.Ct. 2401, 176 L.Ed.2d 922 (2010) (“[M]unicipal taxpayers must

show an expenditure of public funds to have standing.”) In fact,

the premise that an “unconstitutional expenditure of government

funds can itself be injury enough to confer municipal-taxpayer

standing” is not unremarkable as a general proposition. See

Jefferson Cnty., 641 F.3d at 213 (citation omitted) (Sixth Circuit

noted that its “sister circuits[,]” including the Ninth in Cammack,

“all agree” with that general proposition).

Clearly, in the present case the taxpayers are claiming an

“unconstitutional expenditure of government funds” in that they

expressly allege that “the MMCP is an illegal expenditure of [their]

funds,” and that defendants are using those “funds . . . to arrest,

detain and incarcerate migrants pursuant to the [MMCP].” See Am.

Compl. (Doc. 45) at 8-9, ¶¶ 11; and 13-15. Although defendants

contend that these allegations do not constitute a “direct dollarsand-cents” injury, the court disagrees. In this case, the alleged

injury is not in the form of an activity, such as school prayer,

where undoubtedly no costs are incurred as a result thereof. 

Further, in contrast to cases such as Doremus, Madison School

and Cole, where no additional costs were expended due to the

challenged activities, the defendants herein will incur additional

costs if the MMCP remains in effect. In fact, as this court

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previously observed, while there are some fixed expenditures

associated with implementing the MMCP, there are also “additional

incremental costs of housing and feeding individuals in the county

jails.” We Are America I, 2007 WL 275134, at *8 n. 3. The

taxpayers herein thus “possess[] . . . the requisite financial

interest that is, or is threatened to be, injured by the” alleged

“unconstitutional [MMCP].” See Doremus, 342 at 435, 72, S.Ct. 394. 

Additionally, despite defendants’ suggestion to the contrary,

the court fails to see how the lack of a specific dollar amount in

the complaint undermines the taxpayers’ alleged injury, at least on

this motion to dismiss. Admittedly, the Cammack complaint alleged

the expenditure of “$3.4 million in state tax revenues and $850,000

in city tax revenues” on the state sanctioned Good Friday holiday.” 

Cammack, 932 F.2d at 769 (citing Compl. at 7). The Cammack Court’s

analysis did not hinge on those dollar amount allegations though. 

Perhaps that is because the Cammack Court was not squarely

confronted with the discrete issue, as is this court, of whether to

survive a motion to dismiss for lack of standing a municipal

taxpayer must allege a specific dollar amount.

The Ninth Circuit in Cammack did acknowledge that the taxpayers

“specifically . . . stated the amount of funds appropriated and

allegedly spent by the taxing governmental entities as a result of

the Good Friday holiday. Id. at 771. The Court did so, however, 

while employing the Hoohuli framework, i.e., the “pleadings must

‘set forth the relationship between taxpayer, tax dollars, and the

allegedly illegal government activity[.]’” Id. at 769 (quoting

Hoohuli, 741 F.2d at 1178). Subsequently, the Supreme Court

“specifically addressed and rejected the Ninth Circuit’s criteriaCase 2:06-cv-02816-DJH Document 76 Filed 08/18/11 Page 47 of 59
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most prominently articulated in Hoohuli . . . , for determining

whether a state taxpayer met the Doremus . . . ‘good faith

pocketbook’ test for . . . taxpayer . . . standing to sue.” Freedom

From Religion Foundation v. Geithner, 715 F.Supp.2d 1051, 1061

(E.D.Cal. 2010) (citing DaimlerChrysler, 547 U.S., at 346 & n. 4,

126 S.Ct. 1854) (emphasis added); see also Arakaki, 477 F.3d at 1062

(noting that DaimlerChrysler “effectively overrules Hoohuli[]” and

“plainly undermines Hoohuli’s standing principles[]”). The

continuing vitality of Hoohuli in the context of municipal taxpayer

standing arguably remains an open question, however. Nonetheless,

this court declines to import from that isolated sentence in

Cammack, a requirement that municipal taxpayers allege a specific

dollar amount to adequately plead an injury for Article III standing

purposes. Mandating such allegations at this juncture would be

inherently at odds with the Ninth Circuit’s broad pronouncement

“that municipal taxpayer standing simply requires the ‘injury’ of an

allegedly improper expenditure of municipal funds[.]” Id. at 770

(emphasis added). 

Moreover, it strikes the court that at the motion to dismiss

stage, perhaps the more relevant inquiry is whether the alleged

injury is capable of measurement, not whether the complaint alleges

a specific dollar amount. Certainly there is no reason why, as the

taxpayers mention, that additional costs associated with booking,

detaining, and prosecuting “non-smuggler migrants” in accordance

with the MMCP cannot be measured. See Resp. (Doc.69) at 5:23

(citations and footnote omitted). Further, where as here, there are

allegations of tax expenditures resulting from the challenged

activity, a direct dollars-and-cents injury is self-evident. This

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is in juxtaposition to school prayer which by its nature has no

concomitant tax expenditures, and thus could never be capable of a

monetary measurement. 

Defendants’ fare no better with their contention that “any

public funds spent by the[m] in enforcing the [MMCP] [are] merely

incidental to their duty to enforce Arizona law and do[] not confer

standing on the[se] taxpayer[s][.]” Mot. (Doc. 68) at 7:1-3

(citations omitted). Defendants cite two cases, both outside this

Circuit, Dash v. Mitchell, 356 F.Supp. 1292 (D.C.C. 1972), and Reich

v. City of Freeport, 527 F.2d 666, (7th Cir. 1975), purportedly

supporting their contention. Neither does, however. 

First, the issue of municipal taxpayer standing, which this

defense motion raises, was not at issue in either Dash or Reich. 

The court in Dash examined, inter alia, the standing of two

plaintiffs vis-a-vis their status as federal taxpayers and District

of Columbia taxpayers. See Dash, 356 F.Supp. at 1298. Likewise,

while the taxpayer in Reich asserted his status as a city taxpayer,

the Seventh Circuit analyzed his standing under federal income

taxpayer principles. See Reich, 527 F.2d at 669-760. In fact, “the

distinction between federal and municipal taxpayers drawn in

Forthingham[,]” was “irrelevant[]” to the Seventh Circuit’s analysis

in Reich. Id. at 670 n. 8. 

Defendants’ reliance upon Dash and Reich is misplaced for the

additional reason that central to both courts’ analysis was the

Supreme Court’s decision in Flast, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20

L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). The Supreme Court in Flast carved out a narrow

exception to Frothingham for federal taxpayers challenging the

government’s exercise of its taxing and spending powers, as opposed

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16 Defendants briefly proffer three additional reasons as to why the

taxpayer plaintiffs supposedly have not adequately alleged standing. See Mot.

(Doc. 68) at 7:8-14. None of those reasons are persuasive, however.

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to its exercise of regulatory power, as violative of the

Establishment Clause. Plainly, the municipal taxpayers’ challenge

to the MMCP does not implicate that Flast exception. Having failed

to explain the import of these two inapposite cases, there is no

merit to defendants’ contention that the taxpayers have not

adequately pled standing because any taxes spent in enforcing the

MMCP are “merely incidental to their duty to enforce Arizona law[.]”

See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 7:1-2.16

For all of these reasons, the court finds that the complaint

adequately alleges injury in fact for purposes of Article III

standing as to the municipal taxpayers, Kyrsten Sinema, Steve Lujan,

Cecilia Menjivar, and LaDawn Haglund. The court thus denies

defendants’ motion for dismissal due to lack of standing as to the

just listed plaintiffs.

Once again, the procedural posture of this case heavily factors

into this determination. It may be that as this litigation

proceeds, the municipal taxpayers will be required to make a further

showing of injury. See e.g. PLANS, Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified

Sch. Dist., 319 F.3d 504, 506 (9th Cir. 2003) (“As [the trial . . . 

approached, . . . the district court ordered [the plaintiff school

district taxpayers] to provide a further offer of proof as to the

‘expenditure of public monies for the activities that [we]re

objected to in th[e] complaint.’”). For now, however, their

allegations of injury in fact are sufficient to withstand

defendants’ motion to dismiss due to lack of standing. 

. . .

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ii. “Casual Causation” & Redressability

 As with the organizations, the defendants are not contesting

the adequacy of the municipal taxpayers’ allegations of causation

and redressabililty – the other two elements of constitutional

standing. The court’s earlier discussion of those elements with

respect to the organizations applies with equal force to the

municipal taxpayers.

To reiterate, at least on the face of it, the complaint

sufficiently alleges a causal connection between municipal

taxpayers’ injuries and the MMCP. Those injuries are “fairly

trace[able]” to the MMCP “and not . . . th[e] result [of] the

independent action of some third party not before the court.” See

Winn, 131 S.Ct. at 1142 (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). It is also “likely, as opposed to [being] merely

speculative,” that the municipal taxpayers’ alleged injuries “will

be redressed by a favorable decision” herein, i.e. relief preventing

the further implementation of the MMCP or a finding that the MMCP is

unconstitutional. See id. Thus, the municipal taxpayers’

allegations of causal connection and redressability also suffice to

withstand defendants’ motion to dismiss. 

b. State Taxpayer

As to plaintiff Gallardo, the complaint succinctly alleges:

[He] is an elected member of the Arizona State 

House of Representatives, representing District 

13, north of Tucson, Arizona. He resides in and pays 

taxes to the State of Arizona. Defendants are using 

state taxes paid by plaintiff GALLARDO to arrest, detain 

and incarcerate migrants pursuant to the [MMCP]. 

Plaintiff GALLARDO challenges the [MMCP] as an illegal 

diversion of taxpayer funds. 

Am. Compl. at 8:10-17, ¶ 12 (italicized emphasis added). Clearly,

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plaintiff Gallardo is challenging the MMCP strictly on the basis

that he is an Arizona state taxpayer, and not as a county taxpayer. 

Despite the foregoing, defendants maintain that all five

taxpayers “claim standing . . . by virtue of their status as county

taxpayers.” Mot. (Doc. 68) at 6:14 (emphasis in original). Hence,

in arguing for dismissal as against the taxpayers, defendants focus

exclusively on county or municipal taxpayer standing. Inexplicably,

plaintiffs also confine their analysis to the municipal taxpayer 

standing. 

Even though the parties overlooked this pleading discrepancy

between plaintiff Gallardo and the other four taxpayer plaintiffs, 

the court cannot. That is because of the difference between the

legal principles governing municipal taxpayer standing and those

governing federal and state taxpayers. With the exception of

Establishment Clause cases, ordinarily federal taxpayers, like

“state taxpayers[,] have no standing under Article III to challenge

state tax or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as

taxpayers.” DaimlerChrysler, 547 U.S., at 391, 126 S.Ct. 1854. The

underlying rationale, as previously set forth, is that the interests

of state and federal taxpayers in their respective treasuries “[are]

shared with millions of others; [are] comparatively minute and

indeterminable; and the effect upon future taxation . . . so remote,

fluctuating and uncertain, that no basis is afforded for an appeal

to the preventative powers of a court of equity.” DaimlerChrysler,

547 U.S., at 343, 126 S.Ct. 1854 (quoting Frothingham, 262 U.S., at

486, 43 S.Ct. 597). Thus, “absent a showing of ‘direct injury,’

pecuniary or otherwise[,]” the Supreme Court has “refused to confer

standing upon a state taxpayer[.]” ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S.

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17 Interestingly, while alleging that Mr. Gallardo has standing as an

Arizona state taxpayer, plaintiffs explicitly realize that “[p]ayment of federal

or state taxes generally confers no standing.” Resp. (Doc. 69) at 3:26 (citations

omitted). 

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605, 613-14, 109 S.Ct. 2037, 104 L.Ed.2d 696 (1989) (quoting

Doremus, 342 U.S., at 434, 72 S.Ct. 394. 

Here, as the complaint alleges, plaintiff Gallardo’s standing

is based solely upon his status as an Arizona state taxpayer. After

DaimlerChrysler, however, those allegations are insufficient to

confer standing upon Mr. Gallardo. See DaimlerChrysler, 547 U.S.,

at 345, 126 S.Ct. 1854 (limitations on federal taxpayer standing

“appl[y] with undiminished force to state taxpayers[]”). As a

state taxpayer, plaintiff Gallardo must “establish a particularized,

concrete injury that is redressable by the court’s judgment.” See

Arakaki, 477 F.3d at 1063. Allegations of such an injury are

conspicuously absent from the present complaint, however. 

The fact that as a state taxpayer plaintiff Gallardo is

challenging a municipal policy, as opposed to a state policy, does

not alter the analysis. Regardless of the nature of the challenged

action – municipal or state – the fact remains that plaintiff

Gallardo is challenging the expenditure of state taxes paid by him. 

Thus, the general prohibition against state taxpayer standing

applies, and the court finds that plaintiff Gallardo lacks standing

to pursue his claims herein. The court, therefore, grants

defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint as to plaintiff Steve

Gallardo based upon lack of standing.17

B. Prudential Considerations

Defendants’ standing argument is narrowly circumscribed, as is

evident. Defendants confined their argument to “Article III

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standing, which enforces the Constitution’s case-or-controversy

requirement,” and more narrowly, to the injury in fact prong of that

requirement. See Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1,

11, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004). The “standing inquiry

does not end with the threshold constitutional question[,]” however. 

McCollum v. California Dep’t of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2011

WL 2138221, at *5 (9th Cir. June 1, 2011). 

The inquiry continues because there is a second “strand” of

standing, which defendants did not address -- “prudential

standing[.]” See Newdow, 542 U.S., at 11, 124 S.Ct. 2301. 

Prudential standing “embodies ‘judicially self-imposed limits on the

exercise of federal jurisdiction.’” Id. at 11-12 (quoting Allen v.

Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984)). 

Those limits “encompass[] ‘the general prohibition on a litigant’s

raising another person’s legal rights, the rule barring adjudication

of generalized grievances more appropriately addressed in the

representative branches, and the requirement that a plaintiff’s

complaint fall within the zone of interests protected by the law

invoked.’” Id. (quoting Allen, 468 U.S., at 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315). 

Thus, “[e]ven where plaintiffs meet the bare minimum of the Article

III case or controversy requirement, [courts] typically decline to

hear cases asserting rights properly belonging to third parties

rather than the plaintiff.” McCollum, 2011 WL 2138221, at *5

(citing, inter alia, Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 113, 96 S.Ct.

2868, 49 L.Ed.2d 826 (1976)). 

At least at this point, there are no readily discernible

prudential limitations on the exercise of this court’s jurisdiction. 

Nevertheless, the court is acutely aware of its ongoing obligation

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18 That “doctrine takes its name from two Supreme Court cases: Rooker v.

Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 194, 68 L.Ed.2d 362 (1923) and District

of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d

206 (1983).” Carmona v. Carmona, 603 F.3d 1041, 1050 (9th Cir. 2010).

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to “sua sponte examine jurisdictional issues such as standing.” See

Chapman v. Pier I Imports (U.S.), Inc., 631 F.3d 939, 954 (9th Cir.

2011) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3) (“If the court determines that at any time

it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the court must dismiss the

action.”) Fulfilling that obligation, the court will not hesitate to

examine standing again, if necessary. Such inquiry may include

issues left unaddressed by defendants’ motion, such as whether the

remaining plaintiffs have standing “for each claim [they] seek to

press” and for “each form of relief sought.” See DaimlerChrysler,

547 U.S., at 352, 126 S.Ct. 1854) (internal quotation marks and

citations omitted). 

III. Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine,18 like standing, goes to the issue

of subject matter jurisdiction. See Manuf. Home Cmties. v. City of

San Jose, 420 F.3d 1022, 1025 (9th Cir. 2005). That doctrine is

separate and distinct from standing, however, and “[i]n practice 

. . . is a fairly narrow preclusion doctrine[.]” Carmona, 603 F.3d

at 1050 (citation omitted). Rooker-Feldman “stands for the

relatively straightforward principle that federal district courts do

not have jurisdiction to hear de facto appeals from state court

judgments.” Id. (citation omitted). 

Ignoring that distinction, solely with respect to the

organizations, the defendants imply that Rooker-Feldman “bars” the

present action. See Mot. (Doc. 68) at 5:17. Defendants accurately

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recite the foregoing general principle of Rooker-Feldman, id. at

5:17-18, but they critically ignore the Ninth Circuit’s

“formulation” of that doctrine. See Noel v. Hall, 341 F.3d 1148,

1164 (9th Cir. 2003).

“A suit brought in federal district court is a ‘de facto

appeal’ forbidden by Rooker-Feldman when a federal plaintiff asserts

as a legal wrong an allegedly erroneous decision by a state court,

and seeks relief from a state court judgment based on that

decision.” Carmona, 603 F.3d at 1050 (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted). “In contrast, if a plaintiff asserts as a legal

wrong an allegedly illegal act or omission by an adverse party,

Rooker-Feldman does not bar jurisdiction.” Id. (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted) (emphasis added). 

Applying that formulation here, the organizations rightly

contend that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar their action. 

The organizations are not “assert[ing] as a legal wrong any” legal

errors by the Arizona state courts, or any other state court for

that matter. See id. Nor are they “seek[ing] relief from a state

court judgment[]” of any kind. See id. Thus, despite defendants’

suggestion to the contrary, this action is not a prohibited de facto

appeal under Rooker-Feldman. 

Rather, this action fits squarely within the second part of the

Ninth Circuit’s formulation. That is, the organizations are

“assert[ing] as a legal wrong an allegedly illegal act[,]” i.e., the

purportedly unlawful and unconstitutional MMCP, “by an adverse

party,” the defendants, including the Maricopa County Attorney and

Sheriff. See id. (citation omitted). Consequently, the RookerFeldman doctrine is not a bar to this action. See Maldonado v.

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Harris, 370 F.3d 945, 950 (9th Cir. 2004) (Rooker-Feldman did not

apply where legal wrong was not “erroneous decision in state court

in . . . nuisance suit brought against [plaintiff] by [state

agency], but the continued enforcement by [that agency]” of

allegedly unconstitutional statute); see also Bell v. City of Boise,

2011 WL 2650204, at *6 (D. Idaho July 6, 2011) (no “risk” of court 

“conducting a de facto appeal . . . when focused upon the

constitutionality of” defendants’ “on-going enforcement” of city

ordinances criminalizing camping and sleeping in public places). 

Nor does that doctrine in any way impact the organizations’ claimed

standing. Thus, the court denies defendants’ motion insofar as they

are seeking dismissal based upon the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

CONCLUSION

As fully discussed herein, the court denies in part and grants

in part, as enumerated below, defendants’ motion to dismiss. The

court is compelled to again stress the procedural posture of this

motion, and, in turn, the limited scope of its holding today. Given

that defendants strictly limited their motion to a facial attack on 

the complaint’s allegations of injury in fact, with two exceptions

the court has found that the remaining plaintiffs have standing to

proceed with this litigation. However, “the court is not ruling

that [any of the plaintiffs] actually have] standing,” because “as

Lujan recognized[,]” a plaintiff’s “burden with respect to standing

will differ on any subsequent motion on the merits and at trial.” 

Kukui Gardens Ass’n v. Jackson, 2007 WL 128857, at *7 (D.Hawai’i

2007) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S., at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130). 

A plaintiff’s burden varies because the elements of standing

“are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part

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of the plaintiff's case[.]” Lujan, 504 U.S., at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130

(citations omitted). Thus, “each element must be supported in the

same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden

of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at

the successive stages of the litigation.” Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct.

2130 (citations omitted). At this pleading stage of the litigation,

plaintiffs’ burden was not particularly onerous, but that will not

always be so. 

For all of these reasons, IT IS ORDERED:

(1) that the motion by defendants Maricopa County Board of

Supervisors, Governing Body for Maricopa County; Fulton Brock, Don

Stapley, Andrew Kunasek, Max W. Wilson, and Mary Rose Wilcox,

Members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; and Joseph M.

Arpaio, Maricopa County Sheriff (Doc. 68), in which Maricopa County

Attorney, William G. Montgomery, joins (Doc. 72), to dismiss the

claims of the plaintiffs We Are America/Somos America Coalition of

Arizona; Arizona Hispanic Community Forum; Friendly House; Kyrsten

Sinema; Steve Lujan; Cecilia Menjivar; an LaDawn Haglund is DENIED;

but 

(2) defendants’ motion to dismiss (Doc. 68), in which Maricopa

County Attorney, William G. Montgomery, joins (Doc. 72) is GRANTED

as to plaintiffs League of United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”)

and Steve Gallardo.

IT IS ORDERED.

DATED this 17th day of August, 2011.

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Copies to all counsel of record

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