Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-297_4g25.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

Sprint  Communications  Co.  v.  APCC  Services,  Inc.,  554 
U. S. 269, 274 (2008); see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better 
Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 102 (1998).  And with respect to
the  concrete-harm  requirement  in  particular,  this  Court’s 
opinion in Spokeo v. Robins indicated that courts should as-
sess whether the alleged injury to the plaintiff has a “close
relationship” to a harm “traditionally” recognized as provid-
ing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts.  578 U. S., at 
341.  That inquiry asks whether plaintiffs have identified a
close historical or common-law analogue for their asserted 
injury.  Spokeo does not require an exact duplicate in Amer-
ican history and tradition.  But Spokeo is not an open-ended
invitation  for  federal  courts  to  loosen  Article  III  based  on 
contemporary,  evolving  beliefs  about  what  kinds  of  suits
should be heard in federal courts.
  As  Spokeo  explained,  certain  harms  readily  qualify  as
concrete  injuries  under  Article  III.    The  most  obvious  are 
traditional  tangible  harms,  such  as  physical  harms  and 
monetary  harms.    If  a  defendant  has  caused  physical  or
monetary injury to the plaintiff, the plaintiff has suffered a 
concrete injury in fact under Article III. 

Various  intangible  harms  can  also  be  concrete.  Chief 
among them are injuries with a close relationship to harms 
traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in 
American courts.  Id., at 340–341.  Those include, for exam-
ple, reputational harms, disclosure of private information, 
and intrusion upon seclusion.  See, e.g., Meese v. Keene, 481 
U. S. 465, 473 (1987) (reputational harms); Davis v. Federal 
Election  Comm’n,  554  U. S.  724,  733  (2008)  (disclosure  of 
private information); see also Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, 
Inc., 950 F. 3d 458, 462 (CA7 2020) (Barrett, J.) (intrusion
upon seclusion).  And those traditional harms may also in-
clude harms specified by the Constitution itself.  See, e.g., 
Spokeo,  578  U. S.,  at  340  (citing  Pleasant  Grove  City  v. 
Summum, 555 U. S. 460 (2009) (abridgment of free speech), 
and  Church  of  Lukumi  Babalu  Aye,  Inc.  v.  Hialeah,  508