Opinion ID: 2570177
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Law of Standing

Text: {7} The Court of Appeals began its standing analysis by stating: Under our Constitution, in order to have standing, a plaintiff must establish that there is (1) an injury in fact, (2) a causal relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct, and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. ACLU II, 2007-NMCA-092, ¶ 7, 142 N.M. 259, 164 P.3d 958 (quoted authority omitted). Plaintiffs take issue with this statement, arguing that the Court of Appeals incorrectly characterized standing as a constitutional requirement. According to Plaintiffs, while standing in federal court is a jurisdictional threshold set by Article III of the United States Constitution, limiting the subject matter jurisdiction of federal courts to cases and controversies, standing in state court is an entirely different matter. Under the New Mexico Constitution, state courts are courts of general jurisdiction, and our constitution contains no analogue to the federal cases and controversies language. See John Does I through III v. Roman Catholic Church, 1996-NMCA-094, ¶ 26, 122 N.M. 307, 924 P.2d 273. Thus, Plaintiffs claim that standing in state court is a prudential matter rather than a jurisdictional requirement dictated by our constitution. {8} Based on the proposition that standing in state court is a prudential matter, Plaintiffs argue for a fundamental revision of our law of standing. They advocate an abandonment of the three federally-derived traditional standing requirementsinjury in fact, causation, and redressabilitywhich are borrowed to a large degree from federal standing jurisprudence. In place of those requirements, Plaintiffs would have us adopt four prudential factors, drawn from prior New Mexico appellate decisions on standing. These factors are: (1) the degree of potential harm to the plaintiff and the seriousness of the constitutional or legal challenge; (2) the public importance of the issue; (3) the extent to which the plaintiff can bring to bear the concrete adverseness that will sharpen the issue for the court; and (4) with respect to organizational plaintiffs, the degree of difficulty in obtaining individual plaintiffs to step forward on an issue of public importance. According to Plaintiffs, our state courts should evaluate and weigh these factors in deciding whether a plaintiff has standing to sue in a given case. {9} We agree with Plaintiffs that standing in our courts is not derived from the state constitution, and is not jurisdictional. [1] As we recognized in New Mexico Right to Choose/NARAL v. Johnson, 1999-NMSC-005, ¶ 12, 126 N.M. 788, 975 P.2d 841, New Mexico state courts are not subject to the jurisdictional limitations imposed on federal courts by Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. Indeed, this Court has exercised its discretion to confer standing and reach the merits in cases where the traditional standing requirements were not met due to the public importance of the issues involved. See Baca v. N.M. Dep't of Pub. Safety, 2002-NMSC-017, ¶ 4, 132 N.M. 282, 47 P.3d 441 (stating that the validity of the Concealed Handgun Carry Act raised a constitutional question of great public importance, and electing to confer standing on that basis); State ex rel. Sego v. Kirkpatrick, 86 N.M. 359, 363, 524 P.2d 975, 979 (1974) (constitutionality of partial vetoes by the Governor was a matter of substantial public interest); John Does I through III, 1996-NMCA-094, ¶ 27, 122 N.M. 307, 924 P.2d 273 (noting that because the absence of standing in such cases did not deprive this Court of jurisdiction to decide the matter, the denial of standing could not have been based on constitutional limitations on the court's power). Thus, the Court of Appeals' suggestion that standing is constitutionally based, though perhaps grounded in similar statements from past cases, misapprehends the true nature of standing in state court as compared to federal court. [2] See generally Helen Herschkoff, State Courts and the Passive Virtues: Rethinking the Judicial Function, 114 Harv. L.Rev. 1833 (2001) (discussing the difference between standing in state courts and federal courts). {10} While we recognize that standing in our state courts does not have the constitutional dimensions that are present in federal court, New Mexico's standing jurisprudence indicates that our state courts have long been guided by the traditional federal standing analysis. For example, as far back as the early part of the twentieth century, in cases addressing the standing of taxpayers to challenge expenditure of government funds, this Court has required allegations of direct injury to the complaining party for that party to properly seek an injunction or challenge the constitutionality of legislative acts. Indeed, this Court noted in Asplund v. Hannett : Injunction is not a remedy which may be invoked by the citizen for the purpose of controlling public officers or tribunals in the exercise of their functions. In order to sustain it, the plaintiff must show that he has a special interest, in respect to which he will suffer special injury. It is not enough that the community in which he resides will be injuriously affected by some governmental or legislative action. 31 N.M. 641, 656, 249 P. 1074, 1079 (1926) (quoting Story's Eq. Jur. (14th ed.) § 14); see also Eastham v. Pub. Employees Ret. Ass'n Bd., 89 N.M. 399, 404-06, 553 P.2d 679, 684-86 (1976) (plaintiffs who brought action for declaration that Legislative Retirement Act was unconstitutional and for issuance of injunction against payment of annuities under that Act did not have standing, as potential retirees under the program or as citizens and taxpayers, to bring the action); State ex rel. Overton v. N.M. State Tax Comm'n, 81 N.M. 28, 31, 462 P.2d 613, 616 (1969) (noting that there must be a real and not a theoretical question, and the party raising it must have a real interest in the question before a declaratory judgment action will lie). Thus, at least as a matter of judicial policy if not of jurisdictional necessity, our courts have generally required that a litigant demonstrate injury in fact, causation, and redressability to invoke the court's authority to decide the merits of a case.