Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07007/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07007-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 12, 2011 Decided October 28, 2011 

No. 10-7007 

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO 

ANIMALS, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

FELD ENTERTAINMENT, INC., 

APPELLEE

Consolidated with 10-7021 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:03-CV-02006) 

Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for appellants/crossappellees. With him on the briefs were Paul J. Zidlicky, Eric 

D. McArthur, and Bryson L. Bachman. Katherine A. Meyer, 

Howard M. Crystal, and Eric R. Glitzenstein entered 

appearances. 

John M. Simpson argued the cause for appellee/crossappellant. With him on the briefs were Jonathan S. Franklin, 

USCA Case #10-7007 Document #1338482 Filed: 10/28/2011 Page 1 of 24
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Michelle C. Pardo, and Mark Emery. Joseph T. Small Jr. 

entered an appearance. 

Before: TATEL, GARLAND, and BROWN, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Feld Entertainment, Inc., owns the 

country’s largest collection of endangered Asian elephants, 

some of whom travel and perform with its famed Ringling 

Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In this case, a former 

barn helper with Ringling Brothers and an organization 

dedicated to fighting exploitation of animals allege that not all 

is well under the big top. Specifically, they claim that Feld’s 

use of two techniques for controlling the elephants—

bullhooks and chains—harms the animals in violation of the 

Endangered Species Act. But the district court never reached 

the merits of this claim because, following a lengthy bench 

trial, it found that plaintiffs had failed to establish Article III 

standing. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we agree. 

I. 

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) requires the 

Secretary of the Interior to identify species that are 

“endangered” or “threatened.” 16 U.S.C. § 1533(a)(1). 

Section 9 makes it unlawful to “take” any endangered species 

within the United States, or to “possess, sell, deliver, carry, 

transport, or ship, by any means whatsoever” any endangered 

species “taken” in violation of the Act. 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1538(a)(1)(B), (D). The Act defines “take” to mean “to 

harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, 

or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” 16 

U.S.C. § 1532(19). Pursuant to ESA section 10, the Secretary 

may issue a permit for a take otherwise prohibited by section 

9, provided that he first gives public notice and an opportunity 

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to comment on the permit application, as well as makes 

certain findings regarding the impact of the permitted 

activities. 16 U.S.C. § 1539. 

This case involves two techniques Feld uses to handle its 

Asian elephants. First, its handlers guide and control the 

elephants with an instrument known as a bullhook, a two- to 

three-foot rod with a metal point and hook mounted on one 

end. Second, Feld tethers its Asian elephants with chains 

when the animals are not performing and when they are 

traveling by train. Plaintiffs maintain that these two practices 

“harm,” “wound,” and “harass” the elephants within the 

meaning of ESA section 9, and therefore qualify as a “take” 

which Feld cannot continue without obtaining a section 10 

permit. 

One of the plaintiffs, Tom Rider, witnessed Feld’s use of 

the challenged practices over two years, from June 1997 to 

November 1999, when working as a “barn helper” and “barn 

man” on one of Feld’s traveling circus units. His 

responsibilities included cleaning up after the elephants, 

giving them food and water, and generally watching over 

them. Rider claims that during his employment with Feld, he 

developed a “strong, personal attachment” to the elephants 

with whom he worked, and that he left his employment with 

Feld because he could no longer stand to see the elephants 

mistreated. Compl. ¶¶ 18, 21. 

In 2000, Rider and several other individuals and 

organizations filed suit against Feld, alleging that its use of 

bullhooks and tethering violated ESA’s “take” provision. 

Concluding that neither Rider nor any other plaintiff had 

standing to bring suit under ESA’s citizen-suit provision, 16 

U.S.C. § 1540(g), the district court dismissed the complaint 

pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). 

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Performing Animal Welfare Soc’y v. Ringling Bros. & 

Barnum & Bailey Circus, No. 00-cv-01641 (D.D.C. June 29, 

2001). 

We reversed. Am. Soc’y for Prevention of Cruelty to 

Animals v. Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus, 317 

F.3d 334 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (“ASPCA”). Noting that Rider 

presented the “strongest case for standing,” we began with his 

allegations. Id. at 335. In the complaint, we observed, Rider 

alleged that during his employment at Feld, he formed a 

“strong, personal attachment” to the elephants; that he 

witnessed the elephants exhibiting stress-related, 

“stereotypic” behavior in response to the use of bullhooks and 

chains by Feld handlers; and that he ultimately left his job 

because of this mistreatment. Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Although claiming that he would like to visit the 

elephants again, Rider alleged that he was unwilling to do so 

“because he would suffer ‘aesthetic and emotional injury’ 

from seeing the animals unless they are placed in a different 

setting or are no longer mistreated.” Id. 

We found these allegations sufficient to survive Feld’s 

Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss. Relying on our decision in 

Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Glickman, 154 F.3d 426 

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc), we explained that “an injury in 

fact can be found when a defendant adversely affects a 

plaintiff’s enjoyment of flora or fauna, which the plaintiff 

wishes to enjoy again upon the cessation of the defendant’s 

actions,” and concluded that “the injury Rider allegedly 

suffers from the mistreatment of the elephants to which he 

became emotionally attached” could constitute such an injury 

to his “aesthetic” sense. ASPCA, 317 F.3d at 336. 

Emphasizing the lesser showing required at the pleading 

stage, we found that Rider’s allegations of emotional 

attachment, coupled with his desire to visit the elephants and 

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his ability to recognize the effects of mistreatment, were 

sufficient to establish injury in fact. Causation was never in 

question—Feld clearly caused the alleged mistreatment—and 

we reasoned that Rider’s injury could be adequately redressed 

through the lawsuit, assuming the elephants were likely to 

cease exhibiting signs of stress once the alleged mistreatment 

ended. 

After our decision, Rider and the other plaintiffs 

dismissed the original action without prejudice and filed a 

new complaint against Feld. They subsequently filed a 

supplemental complaint adding another plaintiff, Animal 

Protection Institute (API), appellant herein, which has 

advocated against Feld’s allegedly abusive treatment of 

animals since at least 1998. Following rulings on a number of 

motions not relevant here, the district court held a six-week 

bench trial, heard testimony from approximately thirty 

witnesses, reviewed hundreds of documents entered into the 

evidentiary record, and concluded that both Rider and API 

had failed to establish standing. Although acknowledging 

that, pursuant to our ASPCA decision, Rider’s allegations, if 

proven, would be sufficient to establish Article III standing, 

the district court found that Rider was “essentially a paid 

plaintiff and fact witness” whose trial testimony, and 

particularly his claim that he had developed an attachment to 

the elephants, lacked credibility. Am. Soc’y for the Prevention 

of Cruelty to Animals v. Feld, 677 F. Supp. 2d 55, 67 (D.D.C. 

2009) (“ASPCA”). Based on Rider’s lack of credibility and 

the totality of the evidence presented, the district court 

concluded that Rider failed to prove the allegations that we 

had relied upon in finding standing at the pleading stage. Id.

at 93–94. 

The district court also rejected API’s two theories of 

standing. First, API alleged “informational” standing, arguing 

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that Feld’s refusal to seek a permit for activities prohibited by 

ESA deprived API of information to which it would be 

entitled in the course of a permit proceeding. The district 

court rejected this theory on a number of grounds, including 

that: (1) the statutory basis for API’s suit, ESA section 9, 

imposes no duty on Feld to provide information; (2) even if 

Feld’s practices were deemed a “taking,” Feld might decide 

not to seek a permit, and if it did, the flow of information to 

API would be controlled by the agency, not Feld; and (3) API 

already had all of the information it would obtain through the 

permit process. Id. at 97–101. 

Second, API argued that it suffered an injury in fact 

because it had to expend resources to combat Feld’s treatment 

of elephants. The district court rejected this alternative theory 

of injury because API had failed to present any evidence that 

it would spend fewer resources on captive animal issues if the 

use of bullhooks and tethering were declared to be a taking. 

Id. at 101. Because the remaining plaintiffs had abandoned 

any claim to independent standing, id. at 96, the district court 

entered judgment in favor of Feld, id. at 101. 

Rider and API appeal. We review the district court’s 

standing determination de novo, Nat’l Wrestling Coaches 

Ass’n v. Dep’t of Educ., 366 F.3d 930, 937 (D.C. Cir. 2004), 

and its underlying factual findings for clear error, Armstrong 

v. Geithner, 608 F.3d 854, 857 (D.C. Cir. 2010); Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 52(a)(6). 

II. 

ESA’s citizen-suit provision permits “any person” to 

commence a civil suit to enjoin alleged violations of the Act 

or regulations issued under its authority. 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1540(g)(1). Described as “an authorization of remarkable 

breadth,” the citizen-suit provision expands standing to the 

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full extent permitted under Article III of the Constitution and 

eliminates any prudential standing requirements. Bennett v. 

Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 164–66 (1997); ASPCA, 317 F.3d at 

336. To establish standing, then, Rider and API need only 

satisfy the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing.”

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). 

That is, they must show (1) an injury in fact that is “concrete 

and particularized” and “actual or imminent”; (2) that the 

injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged 

conduct; and (3) that the injury is likely to be redressed by a 

favorable decision. Id. at 560–61 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

Because the elements of standing are “not mere pleading 

requirements but rather an indispensable part of the plaintiff’s 

case,” plaintiffs must support each element of Article III 

standing “with the manner and degree of evidence required at 

the successive stages of the litigation.” Id. at 561. Although at 

the pleading stage general factual allegations may suffice to 

establish standing, “[i]n response to a summary judgment 

motion . . . the plaintiff can no longer rest on such mere 

allegations, but must set forth by affidavit or other evidence 

specific facts.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Where, 

as here, standing remains an issue at trial, the plaintiff’s 

burden is higher still: the facts establishing standing must be 

“supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial.” Id.

(quotation omitted). In reviewing a district court’s standing 

determination, “the court must be careful not to decide the 

questions on the merits for or against the plaintiff.” Defenders 

of Wildlife v. Gutierrez, 532 F.3d 913, 924 (D.C. Cir. 2008) 

(quotation omitted). For purposes of this appeal, therefore, we 

shall assume that the use of bullhooks and tethering amounts 

to a “take” prohibited by ESA section 9. 

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With this background in mind, we consider plaintiffs’ 

three theories of standing. 

Tom Rider 

In our prior decision, we held that the allegations in 

Rider’s complaint, if proven, were sufficient to establish 

standing. Then, following a six-week bench trial, the district 

court found that Rider failed to credibly prove “the allegations 

the Court of Appeals had to accept as true at the pleading 

stage to support Rider’s Article III standing to sue.” ASPCA, 

677 F. Supp. 2d at 67. 

The district court based its conclusion on extensive 

findings of fact, as well as its “observations of Mr. Rider on 

the witness stand over the course of two days.” Id. at 94. In 

particular, the district court determined that Rider was 

“essentially a paid plaintiff and fact witness who is not 

credible.” Id. at 67. In support of this finding, the district 

court observed that Rider complained publicly about the 

elephants’ mistreatment only after he was paid by activists to 

do so. It is undisputed that between March 2000 and 

December 2008, Rider received at least $190,000 from the 

organizational plaintiffs in this lawsuit, as well as from an 

organization run by plaintiffs’ attorneys. Although 

acknowledging that Rider performed some media and 

educational outreach work for the organizations during this 

time, the district court found that the primary purpose for the 

payments was to keep Rider involved with the litigation. The 

district court also noted that although these payments 

constituted Rider’s sole income since March 2000, Rider had, 

in his answers to interrogatories, falsely denied receiving any 

compensation from the organizational plaintiffs and their 

counsel. In its detailed memorandum opinion, the district 

court also found that Rider had referred to one of the 

elephants as a “bitch” and “killer elephant” who “hated” him; 

USCA Case #10-7007 Document #1338482 Filed: 10/28/2011 Page 8 of 24
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that he struggled to recall the names of the elephants in two 

separate depositions; that he had failed to take advantage of 

multiple opportunities to visit the elephants outside of the 

circus; and that he was unable to identify the individual 

elephants on videotape, including one who had the 

“distinctive and unusual (for an Asian elephant) characteristic 

of a swayed back.” Id. at 83–87 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The district court observed further that after leaving 

his employment with Feld, Rider had used a bullhook on 

elephants at a circus in Europe, casting doubt on his claim that 

he left the Ringling Brothers circus because he was unable to 

witness further mistreatment of Asian elephants. Finding that 

these facts, along with other inconsistencies in Rider’s 

testimony, undermined his credibility, the district court 

concluded that Rider failed to prove that he had a “personal 

and emotional attachment” to the seven elephants with whom 

he worked sufficient to establish injury in fact. Id. at 89. 

On appeal, Rider seeks to overcome the district court’s 

detailed factual findings and credibility determination by 

arguing that the district court applied a more stringent legal 

standard than required by our decisions. Specifically, he 

argues that the district court required him to prove a “singleminded, all-consuming obsession” with the elephants, 

Appellants’ Br. 46, whereas our case law calls on him to show 

only that he developed a “personal attachment” to the 

elephants, ASPCA, 317 F.3d at 337, and that he suffered an 

injury “in a personal and individual way,” Glickman, 154 F.3d 

at 433. According to Rider, he satisfied this burden by 

convincing the district court that he worked closely with 

Feld’s elephants for two-and-a-half years, that he complained 

to his direct supervisor and elephant handlers about the 

mistreatment, and that he saw some of the elephants ten to 

fifteen times per year when he visited the circus as part of his 

media work. The district court erred, he argues, by going on 

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to find that if, as Rider testified, he quit his prior circus 

employment due to elephant abuse, he likely would not have 

remained in his subsequent employment with Feld for twoand-a-half years; that he failed to complain about the 

mistreatment to anyone in Feld’s management; that he 

forewent opportunities to visit the elephants outside of the 

circus; and that it was unlikely that he would have undertaken 

his media and advocacy efforts had he not been paid to do so 

by the organizational plaintiffs. 

As discussed above, however, the district court’s 

conclusion that Rider failed to credibly prove an emotional 

attachment to any particular elephant rested on extensive 

factual findings, including Rider’s difficulty recalling the 

elephants’ names, his use of the bullhook in Europe, his lack 

of forthrightness about payments he received from the 

organizational plaintiffs, and various inconsistencies in his 

testimony. The district court prefaced its findings with an 

accurate discussion of our decision in ASPCA and clearly 

recognized that “an emotional attachment to a particular 

animal can form the predicate for an aesthetic injury.” 

ASPCA, 677 F. Supp. 2d at 89. That the district court relied on 

facts such as Rider’s failure to complain to management 

hardly suggests that the court believed proof of such facts was 

required to establish a cognizable injury. Rather, the district 

court simply found that those facts, taken in the context of the 

record as a whole, further undermined Rider’s credibility and 

called into question his “personal attachment” to Feld’s 

elephants. 

Moreover, no case supports Rider’s claim that the district 

court’s findings that he worked with Feld’s elephants for twoand-a-half years, made occasional complaints during that 

time, and subsequently witnessed the elephants performing in 

the circus are, by themselves, sufficient to establish injury in 

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fact. Rider cites our decision in Glickman, claiming that it 

holds that a “plaintiff’s repeated visits to view animals 

maintained under inhumane conditions, if true, established the 

personal injury necessary to support Article III standing.” 

Appellants’ Br. 44. But it was not the visits alone that 

established the injury in Glickman, but rather the visits 

together with the plaintiff’s claim, accepted as true at that 

stage of the proceeding, that the inhumane conditions injured 

his aesthetic sense. 154 F.3d at 431–32. As to this element of 

standing, the district court disbelieved Rider and found, as a 

matter of fact, that Rider did not have the personal attachment 

he claimed and did not, as he claimed, suffer from the 

elephants’ mistreatment. Nothing in these findings reflects an 

erroneous application of our case law. 

Because Rider has failed to show that the district court 

applied an erroneous legal standard, we are left to review the 

district court’s fact-findings and credibility determination for 

clear error. See Armstrong, 608 F.3d at 857. Under this 

standard, we may not set aside findings of fact “simply 

because [we are] convinced that [we] would have decided the 

case differently.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 

564, 573 (1985). Instead, to find clear error, we must be “left 

with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been 

committed.” Id. (quoting United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 

333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948)). 

Rider points to only one purportedly clear error in the 

district court’s injury analysis—its statement that “[a]fter Mr. 

Rider left his employment with [Feld] in November 1999, he 

did not complain to the USDA or to any other animal control 

authority about the treatment of [Feld’s] elephants,” ASPCA, 

677 F. Supp. 2d at 70. According to Rider, this statement 

constitutes clear error because the record shows that Rider 

complained to USDA in July 2000. Read in context, however, 

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the district court’s statement is far from clearly erroneous. 

The court made the challenged statement in the course of a 

chronological recitation of Rider’s history in various circuses, 

and the statement describes Rider’s actions immediately 

following his departure from Feld and preceding his 

employment in Europe in December 1999. Rider has never 

claimed that he contacted USDA during that period. 

Moreover, as Feld points out, the district court’s finding 

tracks Rider’s trial testimony exactly. See Trial Tr. at 46 (Feb. 

12, 2009 PM) (“Q: And after you left Ringling Brothers, you 

didn’t take any of your concerns about elephant treatment to 

the USDA, did you? A: No sir.”). Given this, we see no basis 

for finding clear error. 

API—Informational Standing 

In FEC v. Akins, the Supreme Court explained that a 

plaintiff “suffers an ‘injury in fact’ when the plaintiff fails to 

obtain information which must be publicly disclosed pursuant 

to a statute.” FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 21 (1998); see also 

Public Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 449 

(1989) (finding that failure to obtain information subject to 

disclosure under Federal Advisory Committee Act 

“constitutes a sufficiently distinct injury to provide standing 

to sue”). Following Akins, we have recognized that “a denial 

of access to information can work an ‘injury in fact’ for 

standing purposes, at least where a statute (on the claimants’ 

reading) requires that the information ‘be publicly disclosed’ 

and there ‘is no reason to doubt their claim that the 

information would help them.’ ” Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 306 F.3d 

1144, 1148 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (quoting Akins, 524 U.S. at 21). 

Although API brought this suit under the “take” 

provision of ESA section 9, its claim to informational 

standing rests on section 10(c), which requires public 

disclosure of information contained in permit applications. 

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Specifically, a party who applies for a permit must provide 

specified information to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the 

Service, in turn, must make that information available to the 

public. See 16 U.S.C. § 1539(c) (“The Secretary shall publish 

notice in the Federal Register of each application for an 

exemption or permit which is made under this section. . . . 

Information received by the Secretary as a part of any 

application shall be available to the public as a matter of 

public record at every stage of the proceeding.”). According 

to API, because, under its view, Feld’s treatment of elephants 

constitutes a “take” prohibited by section 9, the company 

cannot lawfully engage in these practices without first 

applying for and obtaining a permit pursuant to section 10, in 

which case it will have to submit the information required by 

that section, information which will then be available to API. 

This, API argues, gives it informational standing to bring this 

case. We disagree. 

For purposes of informational standing, a plaintiff “is 

injured-in-fact . . . because he did not get what the statute 

entitled him to receive.” Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, 444 F.3d 

614, 618 (D.C. Cir. 2006); see also Shays v. FEC, 528 F.3d 

914, 923 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (“Shays’s injury in fact is the denial 

of information he believes the law entitles him to.”). To 

establish such an injury, a plaintiff must espouse a view of the 

law under which the defendant (or an entity it regulates) is 

obligated to disclose certain information that the plaintiff has 

a right to obtain. In Akins, for example, the plaintiffs 

challenged the Federal Election Commission’s determination 

that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 

was not a “political committee” as defined by the Federal 

Election Campaign Act (FECA) and therefore not subject to 

FECA’s disclosure requirements. Akins, 524 U.S. at 13. 

Under plaintiffs’ contrary view of the law—that AIPAC’s 

activities rendered it a “political committee”—AIPAC would 

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be required to disclose information about its donors and 

contributions, information that plaintiffs would have a right to 

obtain. See id. at 21 (“The ‘injury in fact’ that respondents 

have suffered consists of their inability to obtain 

information—lists of AIPAC donors . . . and campaignrelated contributions and expenditures—that, on respondents’ 

view of the law, the statute requires that AIPAC make 

public.”). Because of this, the Supreme Court held, plaintiffs 

had informational standing to challenge the agency’s decision. 

Were plaintiffs to prevail, AIPAC would have to disclose the 

information they sought. Similarly, in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. 

U.S. Department of Commerce, the plaintiff alleged that the 

Department violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act 

(FACA) reporting requirements by failing to disclose 

information about its meetings with the North American 

Competitiveness Council. 583 F.3d 871, 872–73 (D.C. Cir. 

2009). Much as in Akins, under the plaintiff’s view of the 

law—that the North American Competitiveness Council and 

its subgroups qualified as “advisory committees” under 

FACA—the Department would be “subject to an array of 

FACA obligations” to disclose information about its 

meetings. Id. at 873. Because plaintiff would have a right to 

this information, we held that it had standing to sue the 

Department for reporting violations. 

This case is very different. As the district court pointed 

out, unlike the statutes under which plaintiffs sued in Akins

and Judicial Watch, nothing in section 9 gives API a right to 

any information. If API is correct about section 9—that Feld’s 

use of bullhooks and chains constitutes a prohibited take—

then Feld would be obligated to cease those practices, but 

nothing in section 9, even under API’s view, would entitle 

plaintiffs to any information. True, if Feld wished to 

recommence the use of bullhooks and chains, it would have to 

seek a section 10 permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service, 

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and section 10(c) would then entitle API to obtain the 

information received by the Service as part of Feld’s permit 

application. See 16 U.S.C. § 1539(c). If at that point Feld 

refused to disclose information in its permit application that 

API believed the statute required, or if the Fish and Wildlife 

Service refused to make public the information it received, 

then API might have informational standing to bring suit for 

violations of section 10. Compare Found. on Econ. Trends v. 

Lyng, 943 F.2d 79, 84–85 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (noting, without 

deciding the informational standing question, that “[t]he 

proposition that an organization’s desire to supply 

environmental information to its members, and the 

consequent ‘injury’ it suffers when the information is not 

forthcoming in an [environmental] impact statement, 

establishes standing without more also encounters the obstacle 

of Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972)”), with 

Friends of Animals v. Salazar, 626 F. Supp. 2d 102, 111 

(D.D.C. 2009) (finding informational standing where 

plaintiffs alleged that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated 

section 10(c) by promulgating a rule that eliminated permit 

requirements for takings of certain antelope). But here API 

seeks only to enforce section 9; indeed, a suit under section 10 

would be entirely premature. 

Attempting to plead around this problem, API 

characterizes Feld’s unlawful conduct as the “ ‘taking’ of 

elephants without permission from the Fish and Wildlife 

Service pursuant to the process created by section 10 of the 

Endangered Species Act.” Suppl. Compl. ¶ 6. But ESA 

proscribes the “take” itself, not the failure to seek a permit, 

and nothing in the Act entitles the public to information every 

time a circus or zoo “takes” an endangered animal. In this 

sense, ESA is quite different from the statutes at issue in both 

Akins and Judicial Watch. FECA “imposes extensive 

recordkeeping and disclosure requirements” in order “to 

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remedy any actual or perceived corruption of the political 

process.” Akins, 524 U.S. at 14. Likewise, FACA “ensure[s] 

. . . that Congress and the public remain apprised of [advisory 

committees’] existence, activities, and cost.” Public Citizen, 

491 U.S. at 446. By contrast, ESA’s primary purpose is to 

conserve endangered and threatened species. 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1531(b). It achieves this not by imposing extensive 

reporting requirements on persons who “take” endangered 

animals, but rather by prohibiting such “takings.” 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1538(a)(1). Section 10’s disclosure requirements are 

secondary to this prohibition, triggered only in the context of 

an ongoing permit proceeding and intended, not to provide a 

broad right to information about the activities of any person 

engaged in a taking, but to allow interested parties to 

comment on and assist the Secretary’s evaluation of permit 

applications. See 16 U.S.C. § 1539(c) (requiring the Secretary 

to “invite the submission from interested parties . . . of written 

data, views, or arguments with respect to the [permit] 

application”). Given the differences between FECA and 

FACA, on the one hand, and ESA, on the other, we see 

nothing in Akins that would authorize us to extend 

informational standing to a situation where, as here, the 

plaintiff’s view of the statute would not directly entitle it to 

the information it seeks. 

API—Havens Standing

An organization may assert standing on its own behalf or 

on behalf of its members. Equal Rights Ctr. v. Post Props., 

Inc., 633 F.3d 1136, 1138 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Here, API claims 

standing only on its own behalf, in which case it must make 

the same showing required of individuals: an actual or 

threatened injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the 

defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be 

redressed by a favorable court decision. Spann v. Colonial 

Vill., Inc., 899 F.2d 24, 27 (D.C. Cir. 1990). As the Supreme 

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Court held in Sierra Club, an organization’s abstract interest 

in a problem is insufficient to establish standing, “no matter 

how longstanding the interest and no matter how qualified the 

organization is in evaluating the problem.” Sierra Club v. 

Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 739 (1972). This is because “an 

organization’s abstract concern with a subject that could be 

affected by an adjudication does not substitute for the 

concrete injury required by Art. III.” Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare 

Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40 (1976). Accordingly, 

organizations “who seek to do no more than vindicate their 

own value preferences through the judicial process” generally 

cannot establish standing. Sierra Club, 405 U.S. at 740; see 

also Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379 

(1982). 

In Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, however, the 

Supreme Court held that an organization may establish Article 

III standing if it can show that the defendant’s actions cause a 

“concrete and demonstrable injury to the organization’s 

activities” that is “more than simply a setback to the 

organization’s abstract social interests.” 455 U.S. at 379. In 

Havens, the organizational plaintiff, a nonprofit seeking to 

promote equal opportunity in housing, alleged that Havens 

Realty Corporation engaged in “ ‘racial steering’ ” in 

violation of the Fair Housing Act. Id. at 366. The organization 

argued that it had standing to sue in its own right because 

Havens’s racial steering practices frustrated its efforts “ ‘to 

assist equal access to housing through counseling and other 

referral services’ ” and caused the organization to devote 

resources to identifying and counteracting the unlawful 

practices. Id. at 379 (quoting complaint). Taking these 

allegations as true, the Supreme Court held that if the 

organization could show that the steering practices 

“perceptibly impaired [its] ability to provide counseling and 

referral services for low- and moderate-income homeseekers,” 

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such impairment would constitute an injury in fact sufficient 

to support standing. Id. Because “[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 

social interests,” id., the Court distinguished the case from 

Sierra Club, where the organizational plaintiff had alleged 

nothing more than a “mere interest in a problem,” Sierra 

Club, 405 U.S. at 739 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

For our part, we “ha[ve] applied Havens Realty to justify 

organizational standing in a wide range of circumstances.” 

Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. 

Eschenbach, 469 F.3d 129, 133 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Our case 

law, however, establishes two important limitations on the 

scope of standing under Havens. See id. First, an organization 

seeking to establish Havens standing must show a “direct 

conflict between the defendant’s conduct and the 

organization’s mission.” Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. 

United States, 101 F.3d 1423, 1430 (D.C. Cir. 1996). If the 

challenged conduct affects an organization’s activities, but is 

neutral with respect to its substantive mission, we have found 

it “entirely speculative” whether the challenged practice will 

actually impair the organization’s activities. Id. Second, an 

organization may not “manufacture the injury necessary to 

maintain a suit from its expenditure of resources on that very 

suit.” Spann, 899 F.2d at 27. Under our case law, an 

organization’s diversion of resources to litigation or to 

investigation in anticipation of litigation is considered a “selfinflicted” budgetary choice that cannot qualify as an injury in 

fact for purposes of standing. Equal Rights Ctr., 633 F.3d at 

1139–40. 

As explained in Equal Rights Center, we begin an inquiry 

into Havens standing by asking whether the defendant’s 

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allegedly unlawful activities injured the plaintiff’s interest in 

promoting its mission. Id. at 1140. If the answer is yes, we 

then ask whether the plaintiff used its resources to counteract 

that injury. See id. (“Instead of focusing entirely on the 

voluntariness of the ERC’s diversion of resources, therefore, 

the district court should have asked, first, whether Post’s 

alleged discriminatory conduct injured the ERC’s interest in 

promoting fair housing and, second, whether the ERC used its 

resources to counteract that harm.”). 

Claiming Havens standing, API contends that Feld’s 

unlawful conduct undermines its advocacy and public 

education efforts—“the entire point of which is to put an end 

to the injury [bullhooks and chains] inflict on the 

elephants”—by “contributing to the public misimpression, 

particularly in young children, that bullhooks and chains are 

lawful and humane practices.” Appellants’ Br. 27. According 

to API, it must spend resources on public education, and in 

gathering and disseminating information about Feld’s 

practices, in order to “counter the misimpression resulting 

from [Feld’s] mistreatment of the elephants.” Id. at 28. Citing 

trial testimony of its Senior Vice President and General 

Counsel, Nicole Paquette, API claims that it spends, 

independent of the instant litigation, approximately $98,000 

per year on circus animal advocacy. API’s circus animal 

advocacy activities include public education through fliers, 

public-service announcements, and billboards; education and 

outreach to its members through quarterly letters, “action 

alerts,” and articles in its magazine; drafting legislation and 

lobbying for measures prohibiting the mistreatment of 

animals in circuses; and monitoring regulatory processes for 

information and opportunities to comment on issues relating 

to circus animals. Paquette testified that most of API’s circus 

animal advocacy efforts are focused on Feld’s practices and 

that it would no longer need to spend “the bulk” of these 

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resources if Feld no longer had elephants. Trial Tr. at 38 (Feb. 

19, 2009 PM). 

Feld urges us to reject API’s position, arguing that injury 

to an organization’s “advocacy,” as opposed to its provision 

of concrete services or programs, is insufficient to support 

Havens standing. Relying heavily on our decision in Center 

for Law & Education v. Department of Education, 396 F.3d 

1152 (D.C. Cir. 2005), Feld argues that “ ‘to hold that a 

lobbyist/advocacy group had standing . . . with no injury other 

than injury to its advocacy would eviscerate standing 

doctrine’s actual injury requirement,’ ” Appellee’s Br. 16 

(emphasis omitted) (quoting Ctr. for Law & Educ., 396 F.3d 

at 1162 n.4), and contends that API lacks standing because 

“ ‘the only service’ ” alleged to be impaired by Feld’s 

practices is “ ‘pure issue-advocacy,’ ” Appellee’s Br. 21 

(quoting Ctr. for Law & Educ., 396 F.3d at 1162). Feld thus 

draws a sharp distinction between advocacy and other 

activities, arguing that this case falls on the wrong side of the 

line. 

We are unpersuaded that Center for Law & Education so 

easily ends the inquiry. Although that opinion does contain 

broad language, it relies on our decision in National Treasury 

Employees Union v. United States, which held only that an 

effect on an organization’s lobbying efforts, absent direct 

conflict with the organization’s mission, was insufficient to 

establish standing. 101 F.3d at 1430. Much like the plaintiff in 

National Treasury Employees Union, the plaintiffs in Center 

for Law & Education never “challenge[d] the substance” of 

the federal regulations at issue, 396 F.3d at 1155, arguing 

instead that the regulations injured them by “forc[ing] them to 

change their lobbying strategies” to a more expensive, stateby-state approach, id. at 1161. In other words, in Center for 

Law & Education, as in National Treasury Employees Union

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on which it relies, standing failed for lack of a conflict 

between the challenged conduct and the plaintiffs’ stated 

mission. Center for Law & Education says nothing about the 

situation we face here, where the defendant’s conduct is both 

clearly “at loggerheads” with the organization’s mission, 

Nat’l Treasury Employees Union, 101 F.3d at 1429 (quotation 

omitted), and allegedly injures the organization’s advocacy 

activities. 

Moreover, many of our cases finding Havens standing 

involved activities that could just as easily be characterized as 

advocacy—and, indeed, sometimes are. In Equal Rights 

Center, for instance, we spoke of an injury to the 

organizational plaintiff’s “interest in promoting fair housing.” 

633 F.3d at 1140. And in Abigail Alliance, although 

recognizing a distinction “between organizations that allege 

that their activities have been impeded from those that merely 

allege that their mission has been compromised,” we found 

that the Alliance had “met this threshold by alleging that it 

actively engages in counseling, referral, advocacy, and 

educational services.” 469 F.3d at 133 (emphasis added) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, API’s claims 

closely mirror those we found sufficient to support standing in 

Spann. There, we concluded that a fair housing organization 

had standing to sue a condominium owner over 

discriminatory advertisements, reasoning that the organization 

might have to expend additional resources on public 

education to “rebut any public impression the advertisements 

might generate that racial discrimination in housing is 

permissible.” Spann, 899 F.2d at 29. Here, similarly, API 

claims that it must expend additional resources on public 

education to rebut the misimpression, allegedly caused by 

Feld’s practices, that the use of bullhooks and chains is 

permissible. 

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Ultimately, whether injury to an organization’s advocacy 

supports Havens standing remains an open question that we 

have no need to resolve here. For even assuming API can 

establish injury in fact, its claim to Havens standing falters on 

causation grounds. Central to API’s standing is its allegation 

that Feld’s unlawful practices injure its advocacy and public 

education efforts because use of bullhooks and chains by the 

well-known circus creates a public impression, particularly 

among children, that bullhooks and chains are not harmful to 

the elephants. This impression, in turn, makes it more 

difficult—and therefore more expensive—for API to educate 

the public about the harm inflicted by chains and bullhooks. 

At oral argument, API maintained that we can draw a “logical 

inference” that Feld’s use of bullhooks and chains creates a 

public impression that those practices are humane and lawful. 

Oral Arg. Tr. at 6:20-23. But at this stage of the proceedings, 

logic is insufficient to establish standing. 

As the party invoking federal jurisdiction, API bears the 

burden of establishing each element of standing “with the 

manner and degree of evidence required at the successive 

stages of the litigation.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561; see also 

Equal Rights Ctr., 633 F.3d at 1141 n.3 (noting that although 

“the burden imposed on a plaintiff at the pleading stage is not 

onerous,” that burden “increases . . . as the case proceeds”). 

Having gone to trial, API bore the burden of proving 

causation, not through logic, but through “specific facts” 

supported adequately by testimony or other evidence. Lujan, 

504 U.S. at 561. To be sure, record evidence establishes not 

only that API expends resources advocating for the better 

treatment of elephants, but also that at least some of Feld’s 

advertising budget is used to portray its Asian elephants as 

healthy and content. But nothing in the record supports the 

key link in API’s standing argument, namely, that Feld’s use 

of bullhooks and chains fosters a public impression that these 

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practices are harmless. Although Paquette testified 

extensively about API’s advocacy and expenditures, she never 

mentioned API’s efforts to counteract that public impression. 

And although API put on numerous experts, it failed to 

provide any expert testimony regarding the effect of Feld’s 

use of bullhooks and chains upon the public’s impression of 

those practices. 

Indeed, the only evidence arguably on point comes from 

Tom Rider, who testified that Feld takes steps to conceal the 

chains and bullhooks from public view. Specifically, he 

testified that when Feld exhibits the elephants during an 

“open house,” its employees “pile all the hay on top of the 

chains” so that the public cannot see them, Trial Tr. at 38 

(Feb. 12, 2009 AM), and that when its handlers use bullhooks 

in circus performances, they “wrap black tape around the 

hook at the top” so that members of the audience are unable to 

see it. Id. at 46. Contrary to API’s claim that Feld’s treatment 

of elephants gives the public the impression that the use of 

bullhooks and chains is humane, Rider’s testimony suggests 

that the public may in fact have little awareness of these two 

techniques. True, as counsel pointed out at oral argument, 

even a limited awareness could lead the public to think that 

the elephants are happy and content despite the use of 

bullhooks and chains, but the point—and the one that is fatal 

to API’s standing—is that it has failed to demonstrate that 

Feld’s treatment of elephants “contribut[es] to the public 

misimpression, particularly in young children, that bullhooks 

and chains are lawful and humane practices.” Appellants’ Br. 

27. 

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III. 

For the foregoing reasons, API and Rider lack Article III 

standing to maintain this action. We therefore affirm. 

So ordered. 

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