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CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

Syllabus 

only genuine “Cases” and “Controversies.”  Art. III, §2.  To have stand-
ing, a plaintiff must “allege personal injury fairly traceable to the de-
fendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the
requested relief.”  DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332, 342. 
No plaintiff has shown such an injury “fairly traceable” to the “alleg-
edly unlawful conduct” challenged here.  Pp. 4–5.

(b) The  two  individual  plaintiffs  claim  a  particularized  individual 
harm in the form of past and future payments necessary to carry the 
minimum essential coverage that §5000A(a) requires.  Assuming this
pocketbook injury satisfies the injury element of Article III standing,
it is not “fairly traceable” to any “allegedly unlawful conduct” of which 
the plaintiffs complain, Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751.  Without a 
penalty for noncompliance, §5000A(a) is unenforceable.  The individu-
als have not shown that any kind of Government action or conduct has
caused  or  will  cause  the  injury  they  attribute  to  §5000A(a).    The 
Court’s cases have consistently spoken of the need to assert an injury 
that  is  the  result  of  a  statute’s  actual  or  threatened  enforcement, 
whether today or in the future.  See, e.g., Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 
U. S. 289, 298.  Here, there is only the statute’s textually unenforcea-
ble language.

Unenforceable statutory language alone is not sufficient to establish 
standing, as the redressability requirement makes clear.  Whether an 
injury is redressable depends on the relationship between “the judicial
relief requested” and the “injury” suffered.  Allen, 468 U. S. at 753, n. 
19.  The only relief sought regarding the minimum essential coverage
provision  is  declaratory  relief,  namely,  a  judicial  statement  that  the 
provision challenged is unconstitutional.  But just like suits for every
other type of remedy, declaratory-judgment actions must satisfy Arti-
cle  III’s  case-or-controversy  requirement.    See  MedImmune,  Inc.  v. 
Genentech, Inc., 549 U. S. 118, 126–127.  Article III standing requires 
identification  of  a  remedy  that  will  redress  the  individual  plaintiffs’ 
injuries.  Id., at 127.  No such remedy exists here.  To find standing to 
attack  an  unenforceable  statutory  provision  would  allow  a  federal 
court to issue what would amount to an advisory opinion without the 
possibility of an Article III remedy.  Article III guards against federal
courts assuming this kind of jurisdiction.  See Carney v. Adams, 592 
U. S. ___, ___ .  The Court also declines to consider Federal respond-
ents’ novel alternative theory of standing first raised in its merits brief 
on behalf the individuals, as well as the dissent’s novel theory on be-
half  of  the  states,  neither  of  which  was  directly  argued  by  plaintiffs
below nor presented at the certiorari stage.  Pp. 5–10.

(c) Texas and the other state plaintiffs have similarly failed to show 
that the pocketbook injuries they allege are traceable to the Govern-
ment’s  allegedly  unlawful  conduct.    DaimlerChrysler  Corp.  v.  Cuno,