Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/454/464/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-09-22 20:28:19
Document Index: 319150915

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 471', '§ 471', '§ 483', '§ 8', '§ 3', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 3']

VALLEY FORGE COLL. V. AMERICANS UNITED, 454 U. S. 464 - Volume 454 - 1982 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 454 > VALLEY FORGE COLL. V. AMERICANS UNITED, 454 U. S. 464 (1982) > Full Text
Article IV, § 3, cl. 2, of the Constitution vests Congress with the "Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the . . . Property belonging to the United States." Shortly after the termination of hostilities in the Second World War, Congress enacted the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, 63 Stat. 377, as amended, 40 U.S.C. § 471 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. III). The Act was designed, in part, to provide "an economical and efficient system for . . . the disposal of surplus property." 63 Stat. 378, 40 U.S.C. § 471. In furtherance of this policy, federal agencies are directed to maintain adequate inventories of the property under their control and to identify excess property for transfer to other agencies able to use it. See 63 Stat. 384, 40 U.S.C. §§ 483(b), (c). [Footnote 1] Property that has outlived its usefulness to the Federal Government is declared "surplus," [Footnote 2] and may be transferred to private
On petitioner's motion, the District Court granted summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. App. to Pet. for Cert. A42. The court found that respondents lacked standing to sue as taxpayers under Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), and had "failed to allege that they have suffered any actual or concrete injury beyond a generalized grievance common to all taxpayers." App. to Pet. for Cert. A43.
Respondents appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which reversed the judgment of the District Court by a divided vote. Americans United v. U.S. Dept. of HEW, 619 F.2d 252 (1980). All members of the court agreed that respondents lacked standing as taxpayers to challenge the conveyance under Flast v. Cohen, supra, since that case extended standing to taxpayers qua taxpayers only to challenge congressional exercises of the power to tax and spend conferred by Art. I, § 8, of the Constitution, and this conveyance was authorized by legislation enacted under the authority of the Property Clause, Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. Notwithstanding this significant factual difference from Flast, the majority of the Court of Appeals found that respondents had standing merely as "citizens," claiming "injury in fact' to their shared individuated right to a government that `shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.'" 619 F.2d at 261. In the majority's view, this "citizen standing" was sufficient to satisfy the "case or controversy" requirement of Art. III. One judge, perhaps sensing the doctrinal difficulties with the majority's extension of standing, wrote separately, expressing his view that standing was necessary to satisfy "the need for an available plaintiff," without whom "the Establishment Clause would be rendered virtually unenforceable" by the judiciary. Id. at 267, 268. The dissenting judge expressed the view that respondents' allegations constituted a "generalized grievance . . . too abstract to satisfy the injury in fact component of standing." Id. at 269. He therefore concluded that their standing to contest the transfer was barred by this Court's decisions in Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208 (1974), and United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974). 619 F.2d at 270-271.
Article III of the Constitution limits the "judicial power" of the United States to the resolution of "cases" and "controversies." The constitutional power of federal courts cannot be defined, and indeed has no substance, without reference to the necessity "to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies." Liverpool S.S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 113 U. S. 39 (1885). The requirements of Art. III are not satisfied merely because a party requests a court of the United States to declare its legal rights, and has couched that request for forms of relief historically associated with courts of law in terms that have a familiar ring to those trained in the legal process. The judicial power of the United States defined by Art. III is not an unconditioned authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative or executive acts. The power to declare the rights of individuals and to measure the authority of governments, this Court said 90 years ago, "is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy." Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, 143 U. S. 345 (1892). Otherwise, the power "is not judicial . . . in the sense in which judicial power is granted by the Constitution to the courts of the United States." United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40, 54 U. S. 48 (1852).
As an incident to the elaboration of this bedrock requirement, this Court has always required that a litigant have "standing" to challenge the action sought to be adjudicated in the lawsuit. The term "standing" subsumes a blend of constitutional requirements and prudential considerations, see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 422 U. S. 498 (1975), and it has not always been clear in the opinions of this Court whether particular features of the "standing" requirement have been required by Art. III ex proprio vigore, or whether they are requirements that the Court itself has erected and which were not compelled by the language of the Constitution. See Flast v. Cohen, supra, at 392 U. S. 97.
The requirement of "actual injury redressable by the court," Simon, supra, at 426 U. S. 39, serves several of the "implicit policies embodied in Article III," Flast, supra, at 392 U. S. 96. It tends to assure that the legal questions presented to the court will be resolved not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action. The "standing" requirement serves other purposes. Because it assures an actual factual setting in which the litigant asserts a claim of injury in fact, a court may decide the case with some confidence that its decision will not pave the way for lawsuits which have some, but not all, of the facts of the case actually decided by the court.
The exercise of the judicial power also affects relationships between the coequal arms of the National Government. The effect is, of course, most vivid when a federal court declares unconstitutional an act of the Legislative or Executive Branch. While the exercise of that "ultimate and supreme function," Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, supra, at 143 U. S. 345, is a formidable means of vindicating individual rights, when employed unwisely or unnecessarily, it is also the ultimate threat to the continued effectiveness of the federal courts in performing that role. While the propriety of such action by a federal court has been recognized since
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 499. [Footnote 10] In addition, even when the plaintiff has alleged
The injury alleged by respondents in their amended complaint is the "depriv[ation] of the fair and constitutional use of [their] tax dollar." App 10. [Footnote 14] As a result, our discussion
Following the decision in Frothingham, the Court confirmed that the expenditure of public funds in an allegedly unconstitutional manner is not an injury sufficient to confer standing, even though the plaintiff contributes to the public coffers as a taxpayer. In Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429 (1952), plaintiffs brought suit as citizens and taxpayers, claiming that a New Jersey law which authorized public school teachers in the classroom to read passages from
Unlike the plaintiffs in Flast, respondents fail the first prong of the test for taxpayer standing. Their claim is deficient in two respects. First, the source of their complaint is not a congressional action, but a decision by HEW to transfer a parcel of federal property. [Footnote 15] Flast limited taxpayer standing to challenges directed "only [at] exercises of congressional power." Id. at 392 U. S. 102. See Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. at 418 U. S. 228 (denying standing because the taxpayer plaintiffs "did not challenge an enactment under Art. I, § 8, but rather the action of the Executive Branch").
Second, and perhaps redundantly, the property transfer about which respondents complain was not an exercise of authority conferred by the Taxing and Spending Clause of Art. I, § 8. The authorizing legislation, the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, was an evident exercise of Congress' power under the Property Clause, Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. [Footnote 16] Respondents do not dispute this conclusion, see Brief for Respondents Americans United et al. 10, and it is decisive of any claim of taxpayer standing under the Flast precedent. [Footnote 17]
418 U.S. at 418 U. S. 228 (footnote omitted).
Nor can Schlesinger and Richardson be distinguished on the ground that the Incompatibility and Accounts Clauses are in some way less "fundamental" than the Establishment Clause. Each establishes a norm of conduct which the Federal Government is bound to honor -- to no greater or lesser extent than any other inscribed in the Constitution. To the extent the Court of Appeals relied on a view of standing under which the Art. III burdens diminish as the "importance" of the claim on the merits increases, we reject that notion. The requirement of standing "focuses on the party seeking to get his complaint before a federal court, and not on the issues he wishes to have adjudicated." Flast v. Cohen, supra, at 392 U. S. 99. Moreover, we know of no principled basis on which to create a hierarchy of constitutional values or a complementary "sliding scale" of standing which might permit respondents to invoke the judicial power of the United States. [Footnote 20]
The complaint in this case shares a common deficiency with those in Schlesinger and Richardson. Although respondents claim that the Constitution has been violated, they claim nothing else. They fail to identify any personal injury suffered by them as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error, other than the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees. That is not an injury sufficient to confer standing under Art. III, even though the disagreement is phrased in
In reaching this conclusion, we do not retreat from our earlier holdings that standing may be predicated on noneconomic injury. See, e.g., United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. at 412 U. S. 686-688; Association of Data Processing Service Orgs. v. Camp, 397 U.S. at 397 U. S. 153-154. We simply cannot see that respondents have alleged an injury of any kind, economic or otherwise, sufficient to confer standing. [Footnote 22] Respondents complain
of a transfer of property located in Chester County, Pa. The named plaintiffs reside in Maryland and Virginia; [Footnote 23] their organizational headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. They learned of the transfer through a news release. Their claim that the Government has violated the Establishment Clause does not provide a special license to roam the country in search of governmental wrongdoing and to reveal their discoveries in federal court. [Footnote 24] The federal courts were simply not constituted as ombudsmen of the general welfare.
619 F.2d at 262. [Footnote 25] The concurring opinion was even more direct. In its view, "statutes alleged to violate the Establishment Clause may not have an
Were we to accept respondents' claim of standing in this case, there would be no principled basis for confining our exception to litigants relying on the Establishment Clause. Ultimately, that exception derives from the idea that the judicial power requires nothing more for its invocation than important issues and able litigants. [Footnote 26] The existence of injured
It may, of course, happen that a person believing himself injured in some obscure manner by government action will be held to have no legal right under the constitutional or statutory provision upon which he relies, and will not be permitted to complain of the invasion of another person's "rights." [Footnote 2/4] It
The "case and controversy" limitation of Art. III overrides no other provision of the Constitution. [Footnote 2/5] To construe that Article to deny standing "to the class for whose sake [a] constitutional protection is given,'" Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, 362 U. S. 261 (1960), quoting New York ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U. S. 152, 204 U. S. 160 (1907), simply turns the Constitution on its head. Article III was designed to provide a
Frothingham's reasoning remains obscure. [Footnote 2/8] The principal interpretive difficulty lies in the manner in which Frothingham chose to blend the language of policy with seemingly absolute statements about jurisdiction. For example, the Court commented with significance on the sheer number of taxpayers who might have raised a claim similar to that of Mrs. Frothingham. Id. at 262 U. S. 487. Yet it can hardly be argued that the Constitution bars from federal court a plaintiff who has suffered injury merely because others are similarly aggrieved. "[S]tanding is not to be denied simply
Frothingham also stressed the indirectness of the taxpayer's injury. But, as a matter of Art. III standing, if the causal relationship is sufficiently certain, the length of the causal chain is irrelevant. [Footnote 2/10] See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 505. The financial stake of a federal taxpayer in the outcome of a lawsuit challenging an allegedly unlawful federal expenditure is not qualitatively different from that of a state or a municipal taxpayer attacking a local expenditure. More importantly, the injury suffered by a taxpayer is not dependent on the extent of his tax payment. The concept of taxpayer injury necessarily recognizes the continuing stake of the taxpayer in the disposition of the Treasury to which he
392 U.S. at 392 U. S. 128.
Whatever its provenance, the general rule of Frothingham displays sound judgment: courts must be circumspect in dealing with the taxing power in order to avoid unnecessary intrusion into the functions of the Legislative and Executive Branches. Congress' purpose in taxing will not ordinarily affect the validity of the tax. Unless the tax operates unconstitutionally, see, e.g., Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 (1943), the taxpayer may not object to the use of his funds. Mrs. Frothingham's argument, that the use of tax funds for purposes unauthorized by the Constitution amounted to a violation of due process, did not provide her with the required legal interest because the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not protect taxpayers against increases in tax liability. See Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. at 392 U. S. 105. Mrs. Frothingham's claim was thus reduced
In 1947, nine Justices of this Court recognized that the Establishment Clause does impose a very definite restriction on the power to tax. [Footnote 2/12] The Court held in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. at 330 U. S. 15, that the "establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this:"
Many of the early settlers of this Nation came here to escape the tyranny of laws that compelled the support of government-sponsored churches and that inflicted punishments for the failure to pay establishment taxes and tithes. Id. at 330 U. S. 8-9. But the inhabitants of the various Colonies soon displayed
In 1784-1785, before the adoption of the Constitution, the continuing conflict between those who saw state aid to religion as but the natural expression of "commonly shared" religious sentiments and those who saw such support as a threat to the very notion of civil government culminated in the battle fought in the Virginia House of Delegates over "a bill establishing provision for teachers of the Christian religion." [Footnote 2/13] Reynolds, supra, at 98 U. S. 162-163. The introduction of that bill in the state assembly prompted James Madison to prepare and circulate his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," imploring the legislature to establish and maintain the complete separation of religion and civil authority, and thus to reject the bill. In the end, the bill was rejected by the Virginia Legislature, and, in its place, Madison succeeded in securing the enactment of "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," first introduced in the Virginia General Assembly seven years earlier by Thomas Jefferson. 98 U.S. at 98 U. S. 163; Everson, 330 U.S.
It is clear, in the light of this history, that one of the primary purposes of the Establishment Clause was to prevent the use of tax moneys for religious purposes. The taxpayer was the direct and intended beneficiary of the prohibition on financial aid to religion. [Footnote 2/15] This basic understanding of the meaning of the Establishment Clause explains why the Court in Everson, while rejecting appellant's claim on the merits,
In Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), federal taxpayers sought to challenge the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's administration of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965: specifically, the Department's practice of allowing funds distributed under that Act to be used to finance instruction in religious schools. Appellants urged that the use of federal funds for such a purpose violated the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, and sought a declaration that this use of federal funds was not authorized by the Act, or that, to the extent the use was authorized, the Act was "unconstitutional and void." Appellants further sought an injunction to bar appellees from approving any expenditure of funds for the allegedly unconstitutional purposes. Id. at 392 U. S. 86-88. The Frothingham rule stood as a seemingly absolute barrier to the maintenance of the claim. The Court held, however, that the Frothingham barrier could be overcome by any claim that met both requirements of a two-part "nexus" test. The Justices who participated in Flast were not unaware of the Court's continued recognition of a federally cognizable "case or controversy" when a local taxpayer seeks to challenge as unconstitutional the use of a municipality's funds --
It is at once apparent that the test of standing formulated by the Court in Flast sought to reconcile the developing doctrine of taxpayer "standing" with the Court's historical understanding that the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit the Federal Government from using tax funds for the advancement of religion, and thus the constitutional imperative of taxpayer standing in certain cases brought pursuant to the Establishment Clause. The two-pronged "nexus" test offered by the Court, despite its general language, [Footnote 2/18] is
and not as a general statement of standing principles. Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 418 U. S. 238 (1974) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting); Flast, 392 U.S. at 392 U. S. 102. The test explains what forms of governmental action may be attacked by someone alleging only taxpayer status, and, without ruling out the possibility that history might reveal another similarly founded provision, explains why an Establishment Clause claim is treated differently from any other assertion that the Federal Government has exceeded the bounds of the law in allocating its largesse. Thus, consistent with Doremus, Flast required, as the first prong of its test, that the taxpayer demonstrate a logical connection between his taxpayer status and the type of legislation attacked. Flast, supra, at 392 U. S. 102. Appellants' challenge to a program of grants to educational institutions clearly satisfied this first requirement. 392 U.S. at 392 U. S. 103. As the second prong, consistent with the prohibition of taxpayer claims of the kind advanced in Frothingham, appellants were required to show a connection between their status and the precise nature of the infringement alleged. Flast, 392 U.S. at 392 U. S. 102. They had no difficulty meeting this requirement: the Court agreed that the Establishment Clause jealously protects taxpayers from diversion of their funds to the support of religion through the offices of the Federal Government. Id. at 392 U. S. 103-104.
First, the Court finds this case different from Flast because here, the "source of [plaintiffs'] complaint is not a congressional action, but a decision by HEW to transfer a parcel of federal property." Ante, at 479 (emphasis added). This attempt at distinction cannot withstand scrutiny. Flast involved a challenge to the actions of the Commissioner of Education, and other officials of HEW, in disbursing funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to "religious and sectarian" schools. Plaintiffs disclaimed "any intent[ion] to challenge . . . all programs under . . . the Act." Flast, supra, at 392 U. S. 87. Rather, they claimed that defendant administrators' approval of such expenditures was not authorized by the Act, or alternatively, to the extent the expenditures were authorized, the Act was "unconstitutional and void." Ibid. In the present case, respondents challenge HEW's grant of property pursuant to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, seeking to enjoin HEW "from making a grant of this and other property to the [defendant] so long as such a grant will violate the Establishment Clause." App. 12. It may be that the Court is concerned with the adequacy of respondents' pleading; respondents
403 U. S. 672 (1971), or in the nature of a gift of property including a facility already built. That this is a meaningless distinction is illustrated by Tilton. In that case, taxpayers were afforded standing to object to the fact that the Government had not received adequate assurance that, if the property that it financed for use as an educational facility was later converted to religious use, it would receive full value for the property, as the Constitution requires. The complaint here is precisely that, although the property at issue is actually being used for a sectarian purpose, the Government has not received, nor demanded, full value payment. [Footnote 2/19] Whether undertaken pursuant to the Property Clause or the Spending Clause, the breach of the Establishment Clause, and the relationship of the taxpayer to that breach, is precisely the same. [Footnote 2/20]