Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-235_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

10 

FDA v. ALLIANCE FOR HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE 

Opinion of the Court 

Driehaus, 573 U. S. 149, 162–163 (2014). 

By  contrast,  when  (as  here)  a  plaintiff  challenges  the 
government’s “unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of 
someone else,” “standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily 
substantially more difficult to establish.”  Lujan, 504 U. S., 
at 562 (quotation marks omitted); see Summers, 555 U. S., 
at 493.  That is often because unregulated parties may have 
more  difficulty  establishing  causation—that  is,  linking
their  asserted  injuries  to  the  government’s  regulation  (or 
lack of regulation) of someone else.  See Clapper, 568 U. S., 
at  413–414;  Lujan,  504  U. S.,  at  562;  Duke  Power  Co.  v. 
Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S. 59, 74 
(1978); Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 
426 U. S. 26, 41–46 (1976); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 
504–508 (1975).

When  the  plaintiff  is  an  unregulated  party,  causation 
“ordinarily  hinge[s]  on  the  response  of  the  regulated  (or 
regulable)  third  party  to  the  government  action  or 
inaction—and perhaps on the response of others as well.” 
Lujan,  504  U. S.,  at  562.  Yet  the  Court  has  said  that 
plaintiffs  attempting  to  show  causation  generally  cannot 
“rely on speculation about the unfettered choices made by
independent  actors  not  before  the  courts.”  Clapper,  568 
U. S.,  at  415,  n. 5  (quotation  marks  omitted);  see  also 
Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154, 168–169 (1997).  Therefore, 
to thread the causation needle in those circumstances, the 
plaintiff must show that the “ ‘third parties will likely react
in  predictable  ways’ ”  that  in  turn  will  likely  injure  the
(quoting 
plaintiffs. 
Department of Commerce v. New York, 588 U. S. 752, 768 
(2019)).

California,  593  U. S.,  at  675 

As  this  Court  has  explained,  the  “line  of  causation 
between the illegal conduct and injury”—the “links in the 
chain of causation,” Allen, 468 U. S., at 752, 759—must not 
be too speculative or too attenuated, Clapper, 568 U. S., at 
410–411.  The causation requirement precludes speculative