Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-297_4g25.pdf
Page Number: 53.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

letters,”  “each  containing  a  new  morsel  of  vital  infor-
mation,” is likely to perplex recipients).  And finally, people 
who learn that their credit files label them potential terror-
ists would not “have tried to correct” the error.  Ante, at 25. 
Rather  than  accept  those  suppositions,  I  sign  up  with 
JUSTICE THOMAS: “[O]ne need only tap into common sense 
to know that receiving a letter identifying you as a potential 
drug trafficker or terrorist is harmful.”  Ante, at 17. 

I differ with JUSTICE THOMAS on just one matter, unlikely 
to make much difference in practice.  In his view, any “vio-
lation of an individual right” created by Congress gives rise
to Article III standing.  Ante, at 7.  But in Spokeo, this Court 
held that “Article III requires a concrete injury even in the
context of a statutory violation.”  578 U. S., at 341.  I con-
tinue to adhere to that view, but think it should lead to the 
same result as JUSTICE THOMAS’s approach in all but highly 
unusual cases.  As Spokeo recognized, “Congress is well po-
sitioned  to  identify  [both  tangible  and]  intangible  harms” 
meeting Article III standards.  Ibid.  Article III requires for
concreteness only a “real harm” (that is, a harm that “actu-
ally exist[s]”) or a “risk of real harm.”  Ibid.  And as today’s 
decision definitively proves, Congress is better suited than
courts to determine when something causes a harm or risk
of harm in the real world.  For that reason, courts should 
give deference to those congressional judgments.  Overrid-
ing  an  authorization  to  sue  is  appropriate  when  but  only 
when  Congress  could  not  reasonably  have  thought  that  a 
suit will contribute to compensating or preventing the harm 
at  issue.  Subject  to  that  qualification,  I  join  JUSTICE 
THOMAS’s dissent in full.