Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05039/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05039-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Teton Avjet LLC
Appellant
Teton Historic Aviation Foundation
Appellant
United States Department of Defense
Appellee
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 7, 2014 Decided May 8, 2015

No. 13-5039

TETON HISTORIC AVIATION FOUNDATION AND TETON AVJET 

LLC, DOING BUSINESS AS TETON AVIATION CENTER,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND UNITED 

STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-00669)

Kevin R. Garden argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants. 

Peter R. Maier, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s 

Office, argued the cause for appellees. On the brief were 

Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, R. Craig Lawrence, 

Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Kevin Laden, Special Assistant 

U.S. Attorney. Oliver W. McDaniel, Assistant U.S. Attorney, 

entered an appearance.

Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge,

and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM: Teton Historic Aviation Foundation and 

Teton Avjet LLC (Teton) together operate as a nonprofit entity 

devoted to maintaining historic military aircraft. Teton is 

challenging various decisions of the Department of Defense 

that made it effectively impossible to buy surplus aircraft parts 

from the Department. The district court found that Teton lacks 

standing to sue because victory in court would not redress its 

injury. We disagree.

I

Congress has authority to “dispose of” all surplus 

government property. U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3. Congress has 

delegated this authority to the General Services 

Administration, 40 U.S.C. § 541, which has, in turn, delegated 

the authority to dispose of military equipment to the 

Department of Defense. The Department assigns a 

demilitarization code (Demil Code) to each type of its surplus 

military equipment that indicates its permissible disposition, 

including the conditions under which the equipment may be 

sold to the public.

At issue are aircraft parts assigned Demil Code A, B, Q, 

and D. Demil Code A includes equipment that is harmless and 

can be freely released by any means, including by sale to the 

public. At the beginning of the events giving rise to this 

dispute, the same was true for equipment designated as Demil 

Code B and Q.1 Demil Code D indicates equipment that is too 

 1 Demil Code B indicates equipment listed on the U.S. 

Munitions List of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations; 

these items have been modified or adapted in some fashion for a 

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dangerous to be released to the public; if the Department does 

not wish to reuse or store such equipment, it must be destroyed 

through shredding or other means.

The Department has a variety of ways to dispose of its 

surplus military equipment. It can, for example, make 

equipment available for humanitarian relief purposes; lend or 

sell it to state or federal law enforcement agencies, National 

Guard units, the Reserve Officer Training Corps, museums, 

foreign governments, or international organizations; or use it 

for “morale, welfare, and recreation activities and services.”

As it has done in this case, the Department can also release 

equipment for sale to the public. See 40 U.S.C. § 545.

Disposal of property through public sale is administered 

by an agency within the Department known at the time of the 

events at issue here as the Defense Reutilization and Marketing 

Service (DRMS).2 DRMS has for some time organized these 

sales by releasing equipment to a private third-party contractor 

called Government Liquidation (GL) to be sold through public 

auctions. As relevant here, GL auctions off particular 

equipment with the understanding that winning bidders will 

have the right to obtain certain components from that 

equipment, subject to the Department’s policies on the release 

of individual parts. A bidder who wins the auction knows that 

no matter how many parts are ultimately made available, it will 

still have to pay the entire sum of its winning bid or otherwise 

 

military application. Demil Code Q indicates commercial and 

dual-use articles listed on the Commerce Control List of the Export 

Administration Regulations; Code Q equipment is commercially 

available and procured without modification. Codes A and D are not 

apparently assigned based on the origin of equipment in the way that 

Codes B and Q are assigned. 

2 DRMS has since been renamed the Defense Logistics 

Agency’s Disposition Services.

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cancel the sale. The winning bidder submits to GL a list of the 

individual parts or items it hopes to recover from the auctioned 

equipment. GL transmits each buyer’s list to DRMS. On its 

receipt, the agency determines the Demil Code applicable to 

each type of part or item the buyer seeks and returns the list to 

GL, indicating which items from the auctioned equipment are 

actually available for sale. The winning bidder must still pay 

the full amount of its bid, no matter how few of the parts it 

sought turn out to be available. If the winning bidder is 

dissatisfied with the parts that it will obtain, the bidder can 

cancel the sale and receive a full refund.

In August 2008, Teton bid successfully in a GL auction to 

obtain the parts from five surplus A-4 military aircraft. Teton 

hoped to use the A-4 parts to perform maintenance and 

conversion work on historic aircraft it already owned. Teton 

put down a deposit of $50,000 to participate in the auction and 

won with a bid of $8,250. It sent a list to GL of the parts it 

hoped to obtain from these five aircraft, including 600 different 

part types for a total of approximately 5,000 discrete items. 

DRMS began to review Teton’s list against the Demil Code 

database. Some number of these parts did not have a previously 

assigned Demil Code. Through an internal administrative

process, these unclassified parts were classified as Demil Code 

D, which made them effectively unreleasable. Other parts 

Teton sought were already categorized as Demil Code A, B, or 

Q, meaning that they were available for sale.

Meanwhile, on November 14, 2008, the Department 

promulgated a new policy regarding the release of surplus 

property (the 2008 Policy). The 2008 Policy significantly

decreased the types of equipment available for sale. Under the 

Policy, DRMS was required to categorize Demil Code Q 

equipment as either “sensitive” or “non-sensitive.” While 

non-sensitive Q equipment could still be sold to the public as 

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before, sales of sensitive Q equipment were now prohibited. 

The 2008 Policy also prohibited the sale of all Demil Code B 

equipment.

The 2008 Policy substantially limited the number of 

aircraft parts Teton could purchase from the Department. 

Many of the parts Teton sought were now classified under the 

new policy as B or sensitive Q, meaning that they could no 

longer be sold to the public. GL eventually returned a final list 

to Teton on March 13, 2009, reflecting the parts that would 

actually be available if Teton decided to follow through with 

the sale. That final list contained 36 part types, totaling only 

189 items.

At Teton’s request, GL extended the deadline for response 

but warned that the sale would be cancelled unless Teton 

accepted the terms and made payment by this revised deadline. 

As the extended deadline arrived, Teton responded through

counsel, communicating its concern that the final list reflected 

so significant a reduction in available parts that it represented a 

breach of contract. Teton asked for another week to continue 

reviewing the transaction, and GL granted this request. Shortly 

thereafter Teton’s counsel advised GL that Teton intended to 

seek special legislation from Congress that would enable it to 

receive custody of an entire aircraft rather than purchasing 

individual parts. Teton requested that GL place their

transaction on hold while Teton pursued this option, but GL 

refused and informed Teton that the sale would be cancelled 

unless Teton gave its assent by April 8, 2009. Teton’s counsel 

responded that it would, if necessary, seek emergency relief in 

court to preserve the aircraft in question while pursuing a 

legislative solution. When Teton failed to accept the terms of 

the transaction by the April 8 deadline, the aircraft were 

destroyed on April 9 and on April 10 GL informed Teton that 

the transaction had been cancelled in accordance with the 

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Special Terms and Conditions of Sale under which the auction 

had been conducted. 3 However, noting that it “value[d] . . . 

future business” with Teton, GL refunded the sale price and 

deposit. Teton denied GL’s authority to cancel the sale 

unilaterally and accepted the refund only by way of mitigating 

its damages.

That same day, Teton filed this action against the 

Department of Defense and DRMS, challenging the validity of 

the Department’s policies regarding the sale of parts and its 

classification scheme. Teton did not name GL as a defendant. 

Teton immediately sought a temporary restraining order to 

prohibit the destruction of the aircraft, not yet knowing that the 

planes had already been destroyed.

4 Upon discovering that the 

aircraft had been destroyed, the Department located and set 

aside five comparable aircraft and entered into a consent TRO, 

later converted into a substantively identical consent 

preliminary injunction, guaranteeing the preservation of those 

aircraft while this case proceeded.

The parties briefed cross-motions for summary judgment 

on the merits of the dispute. The district court issued an order 

on December 21, 2012, setting oral argument and instructing 

the parties to be prepared to argue whether Teton had standing

and, specifically, whether the relief Teton sought could redress 

the injury it claimed. After oral argument the district court 

dismissed the case for lack of standing, concluding that Teton 

had failed to show its alleged injury was redressable. See Teton 

 3 Though the Special Terms themselves are not in the 

record, GL quoted the relevant provision in its correspondence with 

Teton on April 10, 2009. Teton has not argued either below or on 

appeal that GL misrepresented these conditions.

4 Oddly one of the five aircraft had actually been destroyed 

months before, in September 2008, shortly after Teton won the 

auction for its parts. The record does not reflect why this occurred.

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Historic Aviation Found. v. United States, 917 F. Supp. 2d 129 

(D.D.C. 2013). The district court came to this conclusion for 

two reasons: first, Teton had not shown a substantial likelihood 

that the Department itself would choose to offer any parts for 

sale; second, even if the Department chose to release parts for 

sale, Teton had not shown that GL would likely sell the parts 

Teton wanted. 

Teton filed a timely notice of appeal. We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we “review the district court’s 

decision on standing de novo.” Sierra Club v. Jewell, 764 F.3d 

1, 4 (D.C. Cir. 2014).

II

Article III of the Constitution limits the federal courts to 

the resolution of “cases” and “controversies,” meaning that 

courts may only “redress or prevent actual or imminently 

threatened injury to persons caused by private or official 

violation of law.” Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 

492 (2009). This limitation requires a plaintiff to show that it

has standing to sue, meaning that it “has alleged such a 

personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to warrant 

his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction.” Warth v. Seldin, 

422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975) (emphasis in original) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has explained 

that “the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing 

contains three elements.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 

U.S. 555, 560 (1992). First, a plaintiff must show injury in fact, 

or an “invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) 

concrete and particularized; and (b) ‘actual or imminent, not 

conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id. (quoting Whitmore v. 

Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990)) (internal quotation marks 

and citations omitted). Second, the plaintiff’s injury must be 

“fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant.”

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Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 

528 U.S. 167, 180 (2000). Third, and most importantly here, 

the plaintiff must demonstrate redressability, or “a ‘substantial 

likelihood’ that the requested relief will remedy the alleged 

injury in fact.” Vermont Agency of Natural Res. v. U.S. ex rel. 

Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 771 (2000) (quoting Simon v. E. 

Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 45 (1976)). 

The Department does not dispute that Teton has satisfied 

the injury in fact and causation requirements. Nor could it 

reasonably do so. We have held that “a plaintiff suffers a 

constitutionally cognizable injury by the loss of an opportunity 

to pursue a benefit . . . even though the plaintiff may not be 

able to show that it was certain to receive that benefit had it 

been accorded the lost opportunity.” CC Distribs., Inc. v. 

United States, 883 F.2d 146, 150 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (emphasis in 

original). Teton explains that it hopes to compete in future 

public auctions for aircraft parts of the same kind it originally 

sought here. If the Department’s current rules endure, Teton 

will never have that chance: the vast majority of the parts it 

wants are either classified as Demil Code D and so could never 

have been released to the public, or are classified as Demil 

Code B or sensitive Q and so may no longer be released under 

the 2008 Policy. Nor is there any question that the Department 

caused Teton’s injury. By classifying parts as it has, and by 

enacting the 2008 Policy, it has effectively barred the public 

sale of almost all the parts Teton seeks. 

The dispute here is over redressability. The Department 

argues and the district court concluded that Teton’s victory 

would do no more than make it possible for the Department to 

sell similar aircraft parts in the future. Mere possibility, the 

Department submits, falls short of the substantial likelihood 

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Article III requires. 5 Teton responds that the Department’s 

past history of selling equipment of this kind suffices to shift 

the mere possibility of redress to the requisite substantial 

likelihood. Separately, the Department points out that, no 

matter what decision it made about its own property, the final 

decision to conduct a sale would be left to GL, who is not a 

defendant in this action. In the Department’s view, because 

Teton’s ultimate redress depends on the actions of a third party 

not before the court, Teton cannot show standing even if it 

could demonstrate a likelihood that the Department will 

comply with its wishes. Teton rejoins that GL is a mere 

instrument of the Department’s decisions without an 

independent role and, separately, that GL’s desire to earn 

revenue from holding sales would lead it to do so no matter 

what the Department said. 

We agree with Teton on both issues. The Department has 

sold parts like these in the past and has incentives to do so in 

the future. And GL, evidently a mere pass-through for the 

Department’s equipment sales, also has its own financial 

incentives that would likely lead it to sell whatever property the 

Department released. Thus Teton has standing to sue.

 5 It is not altogether clear what exactly Teton believes it 

would receive from success in this action. Teton may hope to change 

individual classifications assigned to specific part types, or it may 

plan to invalidate the 2008 Policy, or it may seek both outcomes. No 

matter; we conclude that, from the perspective of standing analysis, 

there is no difference between any of these possible forms of relief. 

Teton may seek an order reclassifying a large number of parts to 

Demil Code A, making them available for sale even if the 2008 

Policy remains in place. Relief of this kind would constitute 

adequate redress for its injury. And vacating the 2008 Policy, 

irrespective of whether the underlying code assignments were left 

undisturbed, would have largely the same effect.

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1

We think Teton has adequately shown that the Department 

would likely sell aircraft parts if Teton succeeded here. The 

Department has routinely sold its surplus property to the public 

in the past and has a continued, substantial interest in the 

income such sales can generate. For example, the record shows

that the amount of revenue lost by restricting the sales of parts

was among the considerations that were factored into the 

Department’s adoption of the 2008 policy. There is no doubt 

that the Department is interested in its surplus equipment as a 

source of revenue and would have a clear incentive to resume 

such sales in the future if the 2008 Policy did not prevent it 

from doing so. Admittedly, the Department also has separate, 

important interests that can only be advanced by donating 

property to museums or transferring it to foreign governments. 

And there is no guarantee that the Department’s interest in 

revenue from public sales will predominate at any point in the 

future, nor that the revenue from selling property of this 

particular kind will prove more attractive than alternative 

benefits. But these countervailing considerations do not make 

it irrelevant that the Department unmistakably has an interest 

in revenue from equipment sales. Fortunately for Teton, “a 

party seeking judicial relief need not show to a certainty that a 

favorable decision will redress [its] injury.” Nat’l Wildlife 

Fed’n v. Hodel, 839 F.2d 694, 705 (D.C. Cir. 1988). The 

Department’s past practice of selling aircraft and the benefits it 

would receive from doing so are enough to establish a 

substantial likelihood that sales would take place should Teton 

prevail on the merits.

The Department argues that Teton can only speculate as to 

future sales because the Department would retain complete 

discretion over whether to sell equipment of this kind, even if 

Teton were to succeed on the merits here. It is true, as the 

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Department argues, that plaintiffs must show “more than the 

remote possibility . . . that their situation might . . . improve 

were the court to afford relief.” Warth, 422 U.S. at 507. And as 

we have repeatedly held, a plaintiff does not have standing to 

sue when redress for its injury depends entirely on the 

occurrence of some other, future event made no more likely by 

its victory in court. See, e.g., Miami Bldg. & Constr. Trades 

Council, AFL/CIO v. Sec’y of Def., 493 F.3d 201, 206 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007) (finding no standing when redress depends on a 

future decision “beyond the court’s control or ken”); US 

Ecology, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 231 F.3d 20, 24 (D.C. 

Cir. 2000) (finding no standing when redress depends on the 

future “‘exercise of broad and legitimate discretion the courts 

cannot presume either to control or to predict’” (quoting 

ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 615 (1989)). At the 

same time, a plaintiff need not “negate . . . speculative and 

hypothetical possibilities . . . in order to demonstrate the likely 

effectiveness of judicial relief.” Duke Power Co. v. Carolina 

Envtl. Study Grp., Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 78 (1978). The 

Department might do almost anything with its own property 

whether Teton wins or loses. But in light of the Department’s 

past decisions and the incentives that will shape its choices in 

the future, we think Teton has marshalled enough evidence to 

show a substantial likelihood of redress. 

Separately, the Department insists that, whatever property 

it has sold in the past, it has never before sold A-4 aircraft. We 

take the Department at its word. But Teton’s interest is not in 

acquiring intact A-4 aircraft, only in obtaining specific 

categories of parts from those aircraft. The record contains no 

evidence or testimony suggesting that the Department has 

never before sold the parts Teton seeks, as opposed to an entire 

A-4 aircraft. At an absolute minimum we know with certainty 

that the Department at least intended to sell the parts from the 

A-4 aircraft that were auctioned to Teton. Moreover, the 

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Department’s own affidavits support Teton’s position. The 

Department has told us that, although none of the A-4 aircraft 

currently in private hands in the United States were “purchased 

as usable airplanes from the Department of Defense by United 

States citizens or business entities,” many of those aircraft 

“have been built from miscellaneous parts.” These parts came 

from somewhere. It stands to reason that A-4 parts ended up in 

private hands because the Department sold them to the public.

Finally, the Department argues that no redressability 

exists here because Teton “lacks the legal right to compel” the 

Department to sell its property whether or not Teton wins its 

lawsuit. Miami Bldg. & Const. Trades Council, 493 F.3d at

206. True, in our past cases, a plaintiff who could not directly 

compel the defendant to redress its injury has often been able to 

establish redressability nonetheless because some independent 

legal requirement would force the defendant to offer whatever 

benefit was at issue. See, e.g., Lepelletier v. F.D.I.C., 164 F.3d 

37, 41-43 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (finding standing when the plaintiff 

sought to prove that FOIA required the defendant to produce 

certain information); CC Distributors, 883 F.2d at 151 (finding 

standing when the plaintiff alleged that the Department was 

legally required to offer the opportunity to compete for supply 

contracts); W. Virginia Ass’n of Cmty. Health Crs., Inc. v. 

Heckler, 734 F.2d 1570, 1572 & n.2, 1576 (D.C. Cir. 1984)

(finding standing when the plaintiff claimed that the Primary 

Care Block Grant statute required the defendant to provide 

more money for funding community health centers). Here, no 

comparable rule or law would force the Department to do 

anything at all. Even so, Article III does not demand a 

demonstration that victory in court will without doubt cure the 

identified injury. The standing requirement would be a high 

wall indeed if a plaintiff could only sue when the defendant 

was under an inescapable obligation to act as the plaintiff 

desired. Our cases require more than speculation but less than 

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certainty. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 839 F.2d at 705. And given the 

Department’s past behavior and its future incentives, we 

believe Teton has met its burden. 

2

We also side with Teton on the question of whether GL 

would likely choose to auction any property the Department 

released to it for public sale.6 “When redress depends on the 

cooperation of a third party, ‘it becomes the burden of the 

[plaintiff] to adduce facts showing that those choices have been 

or will be made in such manner as to produce causation and 

permit redressability of injury.’” US Ecology, 231 F.3d at 

24-25 (quoting Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562). Teton 

has done so; the record makes clear that GL is simply the 

Department’s chosen instrument for disposing of its surplus 

property. For example, we know from amendments to the 

underlying contract between GL and the Department that GL

agreed to be “the entity that processes DRMS assets.” The 

Department also made clear in several internal documents that 

such property was being “sold through” GL as intermediary. 

And at oral argument the Department appeared to acknowledge

as much: 

[COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT]: GL is the 

third party.

[THE COURT]: All right. They’re a pass-through. . . .

 6 Teton separately argues that it retains a valid contract with 

GL, that GL lacked authority to cancel that contract, and that Teton

could simply compel GL to comply with that contract to cure Teton’s 

injury. As we conclude that Teton has satisfied redressability even if 

no contract exists, we need not decide whether GL still has any 

contractual obligations to Teton.

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[COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT]: Indeed, but 

without that pass-through. . . .

[THE COURT]: [H]ave you put in anything to suggest 

that if the [Department] were to release [property for 

sale to the public] that GL wouldn’t make it available?

[COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT]: No. . . .

Oral Arg. Tr. 24:15-25:7. The Department’s acknowledgment 

conforms to what the record reflects: GL is a pass-through the 

Department employs to sell property to the public, not an 

independent operator that might do anything it wishes with 

Department property it acquires. We have previously found 

standing in cases where a third party would very likely alter its 

behavior based on our decision, even if not bound by it. See, 

e.g., Town of Barnstable v. F.A.A., 659 F.3d 28, 32 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (finding standing when the relevant third party would 

consider court-ordered action by the defendant “very, very 

seriously” in determining its own conduct); Nat’l Parks 

Conservation Ass’n v. Mason, 414 F.3d 1, 6 (D.C. Cir. 2005) 

(finding standing when the defendant clearly “expect[ed] and 

intend[ed] its decision to influence” the relevant third party).

This is just such a case. Given GL’s apparent subordination to 

the Department’s sale decisions, GL would likely auction any 

property the Department released for sale.

Even if GL’s commercial relationship with the 

Department were not as mechanical as we conclude the record 

shows it to be, GL’s financial incentives provide an 

independent basis to find standing. When redress for a 

plaintiff’s injury depends on a third party’s independent action 

and the third party stands to profit by doing as the plaintiff 

hopes, we have found that the third party’s “pecuniary 

interests” and the basic dynamic of “naked capitalism” are 

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enough to satisfy the redressability requirement. Abigail 

Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. 

Eschenbach, 469 F.3d 129, 135 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The 

Department does not actually dispute that GL likely will earn 

revenue from its business activity, but insists that the record 

lacks sufficient evidence for us to know without question 

whether or how GL makes money. We disagree. The record 

makes clear that GL generates revenue by auctioning property 

transferred to it from the Department. For example, internal 

Department communications relating to the adoption of the 

2008 policy reflect concerns that a decrease in the number of 

items available for sale would decrease GL’s revenues. From 

this we know that the Department understood that individual 

equipment sales had economic value to GL. And a Government 

Accountability Office report regarding the sale of military 

equipment to the public discusses financial incentives 

incorporated into the Department’s contract with GL to ensure 

compliance with agency policy, showing that GL had multiple 

financial incentives to comply with the Department’s wishes 

regarding the sale of its property. We are satisfied that GL does 

stand to receive revenue by selling to the public property it 

obtains from the Department. For that reason, even if GL

actually retained discretion over what to do with such property, 

Teton would nonetheless satisfy the redressability 

requirement. We can trust in GL’s economic self-interest to 

assume that it would likely sell any property the Department 

made available for sale.

The district court held otherwise. It found that GL must 

not have any pecuniary interest in selling the aircraft’s parts 

because it did not try to resell the original aircraft after 

cancelling the sale to Teton. We disagree for two reasons. First, 

if so, GL presumably would never have bothered auctioning 

the parts of the original aircraft at all. That this sale ever took 

place suggests, as the record makes clear, that GL stands to 

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benefit from conducting auctions. Second, GL’s decision not to 

resell the original aircraft was made inside the context of 

Department policies that left very few parts available for sale. 

Teton hopes to alter those policies so that it can obtain many or 

all of the parts it originally sought. If it succeeds in that quest, 

GL’s prospect of successfully selling the parts of any similar 

aircraft will be significantly brighter and its incentives to 

bother conducting an auction correspondingly greater. Thus we 

remain convinced, no matter what GL did with the original 

aircraft after the sale to Teton fell apart, that GL will likely sell 

any property the Department chooses to make available in the 

future.

Finally, GL’s correspondence with Teton offers yet 

another reason to think that GL would likely sell Department 

property in the future if given the opportunity. In its April 10 

message cancelling the original sale, GL expressly informed 

Teton that it “value[d]” its “future business.” We draw two 

inferences from this expression of GL’s desire to deal with 

Teton again. First, GL’s remark indicates that it likely would 

make sales to Teton in the future if in a position to do so. We 

have previously relied on such expressions from relevant third 

parties in concluding that redressability existed. See, e.g., 

Emergency Coal. to Defend Educ. Travel v. U.S. Dep’t of the 

Treasury, 545 F.3d 4, 10-11 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (where a plaintiff 

sought to vacate regulations that precluded a third party from 

conducting a program, finding redressability in part because of 

evidence that “strongly suggest[ed] a continuing intention on 

the part of [the third party] to resume the program once the 

regulatory obstacles are removed”). GL’s own expression of its 

interest in future business with Teton makes us all the more 

confident that Teton would be able to compete for aircraft parts 

once the Department made them available for sale. Second,

this remark suggests that GL cancelled the original transaction 

because the Department reduced the number of parts available 

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for sale to Teton, not because GL had any independent 

aversion to dealing with Teton. In other words, this is more 

evidence that GL ignores its own wishes and simply follows 

the Department’s lead, whether the Department wishes it to sell 

property or not to sell property. See, e.g., Nat’l Parks 

Conservation Ass’n, 414 F.3d at 7 (finding redressability 

where the legally compelled action of the defendant would 

“significantly affect” the behavior of the relevant third party).

For the foregoing reasons we conclude that Teton has 

shown redressability. In these specific circumstances Teton has 

adequately demonstrated, based on the Department’s past 

willingness to sell property of this kind and its interest in the 

financial benefits from such sales, that the Department will 

likely sell aircraft parts in the future if Teton wins this suit. And 

though GL is an independent party, its relationship with the 

Department, its incentives, and its past expressions of intent 

together make clear that GL would likely sell any property the 

Department made available for sale.

III

We reverse the order dismissing this action for lack of 

standing and remand this case to the district court.

USCA Case #13-5039 Document #1551431 Filed: 05/08/2015 Page 17 of 17