Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 502

524US2

Unit: $U93

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

457

Opinion of Scalia, J.

standing even without proof that its members would have
been awarded contracts absent the challenged discrimina-
tion. The reason, we explained, is that “[t]he ‘injury in fact’
in an equal protection case of this variety is the denial of
equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the barrier,
Id., at 666,
not the ultimate inability to obtain the beneﬁt.”
citing two earlier equal protection cases, Turner v. Fouche,
396 U. S. 346, 362 (1970), and Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co.,
In other words, Northeastern
488 U. S. 469, 493 (1989).
Florida did not hold, as the Court suggests, that harm to
one’s bargaining position is an “injury in fact,” but rather
that, in an equal protection case, the denial of equal treat-
Inasmuch as Snake River does not challenge the
ment is.
Line Item Veto Act on equal protection grounds, Northeast-
ern Florida is inapposite. And I know of no case outside
the equal protection ﬁeld in which the mere detriment to
one’s “bargaining position,” as opposed to a demonstrated
loss of some bargain, has been held to confer standing. The
proposition that standing is established by the mere reduc-
tion in one’s chances of receiving a ﬁnancial beneﬁt is contra-
dicted by Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organiza-
tion, 426 U. S. 26 (1976), which held that low-income persons
who had been denied treatment at local hospitals lacked
standing to challenge an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rul-
ing that reduced the amount of charitable care necessary for
the hospitals to qualify for tax-exempt status. The situation
in that case was strikingly similar to the one before us here:
The denial of a tax beneﬁt to a third party was alleged to
reduce the chances of a ﬁnancial beneﬁt to the plaintiffs.
And standing was denied.

But even if harm to one’s bargaining position were a le-
gally cognizable injury, Snake River has not alleged, as it
must, facts sufﬁcient to demonstrate that it personally has
suffered that injury. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 502
(1975).
In Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights, supra, the plaintiffs
at least had applied for the ﬁnancial beneﬁt which had alleg-