Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 52

8 

MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

tels, LLC v. Laufer, 601 U. S. 1, 10 (2023) (THOMAS, J., con-
curring  in  judgment)  (“To  have  standing,  a  plaintiff  must 
assert a violation of his [own] rights”).  In fact, under our 
First Amendment overbreadth doctrine, a plaintiff need not 
be injured at all; he can challenge a statute that lawfully 
applies to him so long as it would be unlawful to enforce it
against others.  See United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 
769 (2023).

Facial challenges also distort standing doctrine’s redress-
ability requirement.  The Court has held that a plaintiff has
standing to sue only when his “requested relief will redress
the alleged injury.”  Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 103.  With a fa-
cial challenge, however, a plaintiff seeks to enjoin every ap-
plication of a statute—including ones that have nothing to 
do with his injury.  A plaintiff can ask, “Do [I] just want [the 
court] to say that this statute cannot constitutionally be ap-
plied to [me] in this case, or do [I] want to go for broke and 
try  to  get  the  statute  pronounced  void  in  all  its  applica-
tions?”  Morales, 527 U. S., at 77 (opinion of Scalia, J.).  In 
this sense, the remedy sought by a facial challenge is akin 
to  a  universal  injunction—a  practice  that  is  itself  “incon-
sistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the
power  of  Article  III  courts.”  Trump  v.  Hawaii,  585  U. S. 
667, 713 (2018) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see Department 
of Homeland Security v. New York, 589 U. S. ___, ___–___ 
(2020) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op., 
at 2–3); FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 
367, 402 (2024) (THOMAS, J., concurring).

Because deciding the constitutionality of a statute as ap-
plied to nonparties is not necessary to resolve a case or con-
troversy, it is beyond a federal court’s constitutional author-
ity.  Federal  courts  have  “no  power  per  se  to  review  and 
annul acts of Congress on the ground that they are uncon-
stitutional.  That question may be considered only when the
justification for some direct injury suffered or threatened,
presenting a justiciable issue, is made to rest upon such an