Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

435

Opinion of the Court

tiff is harmed by the defendant, and that the harm will likely
be redressed by a favorable decision, that plaintiff has
standing—regardless of whether there are others who would

gated public schools. We held that the chain of causation between the
challenged action and the alleged injury was too attenuated to confer
standing:
“It is, ﬁrst, uncertain how many racially discriminatory private schools
are in fact receiving tax exemptions. Moreover, it is entirely speculative
. . . whether withdrawal of a tax exemption from any particular school
would lead the school to change its policies. . . . It is just as speculative
whether any given parent of a child attending such a private school would
decide to transfer the child to public school as a result of any changes
in educational or ﬁnancial policy made by the private school once it was
It is also pure speculation
threatened with loss of tax-exempt status.
whether, in a particular community, a large enough number of the numer-
ous relevant school ofﬁcials and parents would reach decisions that collec-
tively would have a signiﬁcant impact on the racial composition of the
public schools.”

Id., at 758 (footnote omitted).

Similarly, in Simon, the respondents challenged an IRS Revenue Rul-
ing that granted favorable tax treatment to nonproﬁt hospitals that of-
fered only emergency-room services to the poor. The respondents argued
that the Revenue Ruling “ ‘encouraged’ hospitals to deny services to indi-
426 U. S., at 42. As in Allen, we held that the chain of causation
gents.”
was too attenuated:
“It is purely speculative whether the denials of service . . . fairly can be
traced to [the IRS’s] ‘encouragement’ or instead result from decisions made
by the hospitals without regard to the tax implications.

“It is equally speculative whether the desired exercise of the court’s
remedial powers in this suit would result in the availability to respondents
of such services. So far as the complaint sheds light, it is just as plausi-
ble that the hospitals to which respondents may apply for service would
elect to forgo favorable tax treatment to avoid the undetermined ﬁnancial
drain of an increase in the level of uncompensated services.”
426 U. S.,
at 42–43.
See also id., at 45 (“Speculative inferences are necessary to connect
[respondents’] injury to the challenged actions of petitioners”).

The injury in the present case is comparable to the repeal of a law
granting a subsidy to sellers of processing plants if, and only if, they sell
to farmers’ cooperatives. Every farmers’ cooperative seeking to buy a
processing plant is harmed by that repeal.