United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 22, 2021*

Decided December 23, 2021 

Before

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 21-2039 

DAVID H. PENNY,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

NANCY PELOSI, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 20-CV-2047 

Colin S. Bruce, 

Judge.

O R D E R

David Penny, a private citizen, sued the 230 members of the United States House 

of Representatives who voted in 2019 to impeach then-President Donald J. Trump. 

Penny alleged that President Trump had not committed an impeachable offense and 

that the defendants therefore violated the Constitution by voting to impeach. The 

district court dismissed the complaint on jurisdictional grounds based on a lack of 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1
No. 21-2039 Page 2 

standing and the defendants’ absolute immunity. We affirm the dismissal for lack of 

jurisdiction. 

In their motion under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure, the defendants raised a host of grounds for dismissing Penny’s complaint. 

They argued, among other things, that Penny had suffered no concrete injury and 

therefore lacked Article III standing and that the Speech or Debate Clause, U.S. CONST. 

art. I, § 6, cl. 1, bars suits against them for their legislative acts. The district court agreed 

with both of these arguments and dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, without 

giving plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint. 

In our de novo review of the jurisdictional dismissal, see Democratic Party of 

Wisconsin v. Vos, 966 F.3d 581, 584–85 (7th Cir. 2020), we need look no further than 

Article III standing. Penny argues on appeal that he suffered an injury-in-fact because 

the impeachment eroded constitutional norms and threatened to remove from office a 

President for whom he voted. To meet his burden, however, Penny had to show that he 

personally suffered an injury that was “concrete and particularized,” not “conjectural or 

hypothetical.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (internal quotations 

omitted). Taking his allegations at face value, Penny’s concerns are rooted in “his and 

every citizen’s interest in proper application of the Constitution and laws” and are 

precisely the sorts of widely shared grievances about government that the Supreme 

Court has long held insufficient to generate a case or controversy under Article III. 

Id. at 573; Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499 (1975) (no Article III standing based on

“generalized grievance shared ... by all or a large class of citizens”). Insofar as Penny 

also argues that his vote for the impeached President supplies a particularized injury,

this argument fails for the same reason. 

Penny also argues that the district court should have allowed him to amend his 

complaint. Ordinarily he would be correct, see Runnion v. Girl Scouts of Greater Chi. & 

Nw. Ind., 786 F.3d 510, 518 (7th Cir. 2015), but any attempt to amend would be futile 

here because he could allege no injury sufficient to establish standing. See Access Living 

of Metro. Chicago v. Uber Techs., Inc., 958 F.3d 604, 614 (7th Cir. 2020). Indeed, the 

proposed amended complaint that he submits with his appellate brief describes no

particularized or concrete injury. See id.

Because Penny lacks standing, we need not address his other arguments. The 

judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED with the clarification that the dismissal is 

for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.