Opinion ID: 4565245
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standing for Information Claim

Text: Relatedly, SCF argues that it suffered an injury when ANTHC amended the Code of Conduct and adopted the Disclosure Policy, which together deprived SCF of its ability to exercise its governance rights intelligently and effectively by prohibiting SCF’s Director from sharing certain critical information with SCF. Consistent with our foregoing conclusion that SCF has standing to bring its Executive Committee Claim, we likewise agree that the alleged deprivation of information necessary to exercise effectively the governance and participation rights allocated to the regional health entities in Section 325 constitutes an injury in fact sufficient to confer Article III standing. Indeed, the right to govern would be a hollow promise absent the information necessary to exercise that right intelligently. ANTHC relies on Wilderness Society, Inc. v. Rey, 622 F.3d 1251 (9th Cir. 2010), however, to argue that because Section 325 does not create an express right to information, SCF cannot establish standing as to this claim. That argument is unavailing. In Wilderness Society, environmental groups argued that they had standing to challenge various regulations issued by the United States Forest Service that “significantly limit[ed] the scope and availability of notice, comment, and appeals procedures” for proposed decisions concerning projects under the Forest Service Decisionmaking and Appeals Reform Act (“ARA”), thereby allegedly causing the environmental groups an “informational injury.” Id. at 1253, 1258–59. We observed that in order “[t]o ground a claim to standing on an 16 SOUTHCENTRAL FOUNDATION V. ANTHC informational injury, the ARA must grant a right to information capable of supporting a lawsuit.” Id. at 1259. We concluded that plaintiffs failed to assert an informational injury because “Congress’s purpose in mandating notice in the context of the ARA was not to disclose information, but rather to allow the public opportunity to comment on the proposals.” Id. at 1259. ANTHC argues that because the purpose of Section 325 was to allow participation in decision-making—not to provide information—SCF does not have standing to assert an informational injury, even if information may act “as a predicate” for participation in decision-making. However, unlike the plaintiffs in Wilderness Society, SCF alleges an informational injury that is inextricably tied to its interest in exercising its governance and participation rights, not merely the right to participate in the public comment process. Cf. Lapidus, 232 F.3d at 683 (shareholders had standing under Massachusetts law to bring direct action for violation of their voting rights). This is a meaningful difference in kind. Accordingly, we conclude that SCF has demonstrated injury in fact sufficient to confer Article III standing to bring its informational injury claim.