Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-297_4g25.pdf
Page Number: 15

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

speech  relieves  courts  of  their  responsibility  to  inde-
pendently decide whether the law violates the First Amend-
ment.  Cf.  United  States  v.  Eichman,  496  U. S.  310,  317– 
318 (1990).  As Judge Katsas has rightly stated, “we cannot 
treat an injury as ‘concrete’ for Article III purposes based 
only  on  Congress’s  say-so.”  Trichell  v.  Midland  Credit 
Mgmt., Inc., 964 F. 3d 990, 999, n. 2 (CA11 2020) (sitting by 
designation);  see  Marbury,  1  Cranch,  at  178;  see  also 
Raines, 521 U. S., at 820, n. 3; Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare 
Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 41, n. 22 (1976); Muskrat 
v. United States, 219 U. S. 346, 361–362 (1911). 

For standing purposes, therefore, an important difference
exists between (i) a plaintiff ’s statutory cause of action to 
sue  a  defendant  over  the  defendant’s  violation  of  federal 
law, and (ii) a plaintiff ’s suffering concrete harm because of 
the defendant’s violation of federal law.  Congress may en-
act legal prohibitions and obligations.  And Congress may
create causes of action for plaintiffs to sue defendants who
violate  those  legal  prohibitions  or  obligations.    But  under 
Article III, an injury in law is not an injury in fact.  Only
those plaintiffs who have been concretely harmed by a de-
fendant’s statutory violation may sue that private defend-
ant over that violation in federal court.  As then-Judge Bar-
rett  succinctly  summarized,  “Article  III  grants  federal
courts  the  power  to  redress  harms  that  defendants  cause
plaintiffs, not a freewheeling power to hold defendants ac-
countable for legal infractions.”  Casillas, 926 F. 3d, at 332. 
To appreciate how the Article III “concrete harm” princi-
ple operates in practice, consider two different hypothetical
plaintiffs.  Suppose first that a Maine citizen’s land is pol-
luted by a nearby factory.  She sues the company, alleging
that it violated a federal environmental law and damaged 
her property.  Suppose also that a second plaintiff in Hawaii 
files  a  federal  lawsuit  alleging  that  the  same  company  in
Maine violated that same environmental law by polluting 
land in Maine.  The violation did not personally harm the