Opinion ID: 613270
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Irving

Text: Even if the City of Hugo lacks political subdivision standing, this case should proceed to the merits because the City of Irving has standing to raise the dormant Commerce Cause claim. As the majority notes, Irving, a Texas municipality, faces no political subdivision standing bar. The majority holds that Irving does not meet the redressability requirement of Article III standing. Standing under Article III of the Constitution requires that an injury be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling. Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2743, 2752, 177 L.Ed.2d 461 (2010). It must be the effect of the court's judgment on the defendant that redresses the plaintiffs' injury, whether directly or indirectly. Coll v. First Am. Title Ins. Co., 642 F.3d 876, 892 (10th Cir.2011) (quoting Nova Health Sys. v. Gandy, 416 F.3d 1149, 1159 (10th Cir.2005)). Irving's alleged injury is its inability to import water from Oklahoma pursuant to its contract with Hugo. Irving claims that certain Oklahoma water statutes cause this injury because they restrict interstate water transfers compared to intrastate water transfers. The injury is redressable because a successful dormant Commerce Clause challenge to these statutes will remove a major barrier to Irving's plan to use Hugo's water. The majority argues that Irving's contract with Hugo makes Irving's Article III standing dependent on Hugo's standing and that dismissal of Hugo under the political subdivision standing doctrine eliminates redressability for Irving. But in my view, the contract cuts the other way. By entering the contract, Hugo as seller and Irving as buyer of water have an equal and mutual stake in performance of the contract and the transfer of the water. Hugo, not Irving, is the applicant to the OWRB for approval of the water transfer. But even if Hugo is dismissed from this case because it cannot sue its parent state, Hugo's application remains before the OWRB. Irving has as much stake in the application as Hugo does by virtue of their contract, and Irving's dormant Commerce Clause claim, if successful, would declare the Oklahoma water statutes unconstitutional and thereby help pave the way for approval of the application. The contract ties Irving to the OWRB's decision on the application and enables Irving to meet the elements of Article III standing. It is reasonable to expect that the OWRB would respect and follow a decision of this court that the Oklahoma water laws restricting interstate transfer of water from Hugo to Irving are unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause. For its redressability analysis, the majority relies on Wyoming Sawmills Inc. v. U.S. Forest Service, 383 F.3d 1241 (10th Cir.2004). In Wyoming Sawmills, a timber company alleged that the Forest Service violated the Establishment Clause by expanding a protected area to protect a Native American religious site. Id. at 1243-45. The company's alleged injury was its inability to access the expanded site to cut timber. Id. at 1246. We held that the timber company's injury was not redressable: Wyoming Sawmills has not shown that a timber lease would `likely' become available on the lands within the area of consultation if plaintiff were to have the HPP set aside ... the federal agency has complete discretion as to whether to offer the opportunity sought by the plaintiff, and accordingly the courts do not have the power to grant the only relief that would rectify the alleged injury. Id. at 1249. Wyoming Sawmills' injury was not redressable because the relief it sought  securing a timber lease in the protected area  was too speculative and remote even if the timber company prevailed on its Establishment Clause claim against the Forest Service. Even if it lost the case on the merits, the Forest Service would still have had complete discretion on whether to offer timber leases in the area at issue. Even if leasing opportunities were offered, Wyoming Sawmills would need to qualify for and apply to receive one, and then the company might be competing with others for the lease. Finally, the Forest Service would need to select the company from among the lease applicants. Wyoming Sawmills is sufficiently different from this case that it supports standing redressability here by comparison. Hugo holds Oklahoma water permits. Hugo and Irving have entered a contract for Irving to use Hugo's water in Texas. Hugo has applied to the OWRB for approval to implement the contract. Irving alleges that the Oklahoma water laws on out-of-state water use block performance of the contract. With or without Hugo, a successful dormant Commerce Clause challenge would redress this problem by removing a major state statutory obstacle to securing Irving's contractual water rights through Hugo's application. Irving's situation resembles the plaintiff's in City of Altus v. Carr, 255 F.Supp. 828 (W.D.Tex.1966). In that case, the district court reached the merits of an Oklahoma municipality's claim that a Texas law banning the export of Texas water to Oklahoma violated the dormant Commerce Clause. Id. at 837-40. Altus had contracted to purchase the water from a private landowner in Texas. Id. at 831. Irving contracted with an Oklahoma municipality rather than a private landowner, but that difference does not diminish Altus as supporting Irving's Article III standing. Irving, like Altus, has contracted to use water out-of-state and is burdened from doing so by allegedly unconstitutional statutes. Because invalidation of the Oklahoma statutes under the dormant Commerce Clause would redress Irving's alleged injury, I would hold that Irving, like Hugo, has standing to raise its dormant Commerce Clause claim.