Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-297_4g25.pdf
Page Number: 51

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

1 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 20–297 
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TRANSUNION LLC, PETITIONER v. SERGIO L. 
RAMIREZ 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[June 25, 2021] 

JUSTICE  KAGAN,  with  whom  JUSTICE  BREYER  and 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting. 

The familiar story of Article III standing depicts the doc-
trine as an integral aspect of judicial restraint.  The case-
or-controversy requirement of Article III, the account runs, 
is  “built  on  a  single  basic  idea—the  idea  of  separation  of
powers.”  Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 752 (1984).  Rigor-
ous standing rules help safeguard that separation by keep-
ing  the  courts  away  from  issues  “more  appropriately  ad-
dressed in the representative branches.”  Id., at 751.  In so 
doing,  those  rules  prevent  courts  from  overstepping  their 
“proper—and properly limited—role” in “a democratic soci-
ety.”  Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 498 (1975); see ante, 
at 7–8 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).

After  today’s  decision,  that  story  needs  a  rewrite.    The 
Court here transforms standing law from a doctrine of judi-
cial modesty into a tool of judicial aggrandizement.  It holds, 
for  the  first  time,  that  a  specific  class  of  plaintiffs  whom
Congress allowed to bring a lawsuit cannot do so under Ar-
ticle III.  I join JUSTICE THOMAS’s dissent, which explains
why the majority’s decision is so mistaken.  As he recounts, 
our  Article  III  precedents  teach  that  Congress  has  broad 
“power to create and define rights.”  Ante, at 13; see Spokeo, 
Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 341 (2016); Lujan v. Defenders 
of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 578 (1992); Warth, 422 U. S., at