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6 

FDA v. ALLIANCE FOR HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE 

Opinion of the Court 

text of the Constitution. 

Article III of the Constitution confines the jurisdiction of 
federal courts to “Cases” and “Controversies.”  The case or 
controversy  requirement  limits  the  role  of  the  Federal 
Judiciary in our system of separated powers.  As this Court 
explained  to  President  George  Washington  in  1793  in
response to his request for a legal opinion, federal courts do
not  issue  advisory  opinions  about  the  law—even  when 
requested  by  the  President. 
13  Papers  of  George
Washington: Presidential Series 392 (C. Patrick ed. 2007).
Nor do federal courts operate as an open forum for citizens 
“to  press  general  complaints  about  the  way  in  which 
government goes about its business.”  Allen v. Wright, 468 
U. S.  737,  760  (1984)  (quotation  marks  omitted);  see 
California v. Texas, 593 U. S. 659, 673 (2021); Valley Forge 
Christian  College  v.  Americans  United  for  Separation  of 
Church  and  State,  Inc.,  454  U. S.  464,  487  (1982);  United 
States  v.  Richardson,  418  U. S.  166,  175  (1974);  Ex parte 
Levitt,  302  U. S.  633,  634 
(per curiam); 
Massachusetts  v.  Mellon,  262  U. S.  447,  487–488  (1923); 
Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126, 129–130 (1922). 

(1937) 

As Justice Scalia memorably said, Article III requires a
plaintiff  to  first  answer  a  basic  question:    “ ‘What’s  it  to 
you?’ ”  A. Scalia, The Doctrine of Standing as an Essential 
Element of the Separation of Powers, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 
881,  882  (1983).    For  a  plaintiff  to  get  in  the  federal
courthouse door and obtain a judicial determination of what 
the  governing  law  is,  the  plaintiff  cannot  be  a  mere
bystander, but instead must have a “personal stake” in the 
dispute.  TransUnion, 594 U. S., at 423.  The requirement
that the plaintiff possess a personal stake helps ensure that 
courts  decide  litigants’  legal  rights  in  specific  cases,  as
Article  III  requires,  and  that  courts  do  not  opine  on  legal 
issues in response to citizens who might “roam the country
in search of governmental wrongdoing.”  Valley Forge, 454 
U. S., at 487; see, e.g., Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to