Opinion ID: 186912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standing and Other Threshold Issues

Text: 17 The Clerk and CTIA contend that Public Citizen cannot meet the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing. Appellee's Br. at 30-32; Br. of Amicus Curiae at 19-27; see Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) (describing Article III standing requirements). In particular, CTIA argues that, in addition to requiring injury-in-fact and causation, Article III obliges the plaintiff to establish that the alleged injury is judicially redressable. Because the putatively unconstitutional provision of the DRA can be severed from the concededly valid remainder of the Act, Public Citizen's grievance concerning increased filing fees simply would not be redressed by a favorable decision in this appeal. Br. of Amicus Curiae at 4 (citation omitted). The Clerk concurs in this view, Appellee's Br. at 30, but argues in the alternative that we may affirm without addressing standing, because Marshall Field erects a threshold barrier to judicial inquiry, id. at 30 n. 7. We agree that we may affirm without reaching the issue of standing. 18 In Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, the Supreme Court held that Article III jurisdiction is always an antecedent question to be answered prior to any merits inquiry. 523 U.S. 83, 101, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998). The Court emphasized that in order to dismiss a claim for failure to state a cause of action a court must have  power to adjudicate the case. Id. at 89, 118 S.Ct. 1003. Therefore, such a dismissal cannot be issued before resolving a dispute concerning jurisdiction. Id. at 92, 118 S.Ct. 1003. The Court noted, however, that in some cases involving extraordinary procedural postures, id. at 98, 118 S.Ct. 1003, federal courts have permissibly resolved the merits of a dispute without first addressing an outstanding jurisdictional question, see id. at 98-101, 118 S.Ct. 1003. The Court added that some of these cases must be acknowledged to have diluted the absolute purity of the rule that Article III jurisdiction is always an antecedent question. Id. at 101, 118 S.Ct. 1003; see also id. at 110-11, 118 S.Ct. 1003 ([T]he Court's opinion should not be read as cataloging an exhaustive list of circumstances under which federal courts may exercise judgment in reserv[ing] difficult questions of . . . jurisdiction when the case alternatively could be resolved on the merits in favor of the same party.) (O'Connor, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 19 Further diluting the purity of the rule that Article III jurisdiction is always an antecedent question, the Court in Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 119 S.Ct. 1563, 143 L.Ed.2d 760 (1999), observed that 20 [w]hile Steel Co. reasoned that subject-matter jurisdiction necessarily precedes a ruling on the merits, the same principle does not dictate a sequencing of jurisdictional issues. [A] court that dismisses on . . . non-merits grounds such as . . . personal jurisdiction, before finding subject-matter jurisdiction, makes no assumption of law-declaring power that violates the separation of powers principles underlying . . . Steel Company.  It is hardly novel for a federal court to choose among threshold grounds for denying audience to a case on the merits. Thus, as the Court observed in Steel Co., district courts do not overstep Article III limits when they decline jurisdiction of state-law claims on discretionary grounds without determining whether those claims fall within their pendent jurisdiction, or abstain ... without deciding whether the parties present a case or controversy.... 21 Id. at 584-85, 119 S.Ct. 1563 (internal citations omitted); see also Seale v. INS, 323 F.3d 150, 155 (1st Cir. 2003) (Despite sweeping language . . . Steel Co. does not, in all instances, create an absolute rule against bypassing questions of a jurisdictional nature.). 22 Doubts about Steel Co. 's reach were significantly quelled in Tenet when the Court held that a federal court is not obliged to decide jurisdictional issues before certain nonjurisdictional rule[s] designed not merely to defeat the asserted claims, but to preclude judicial inquiry. Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230. In Tenet, the Court held that the Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105, 23 L.Ed. 605 (1875), rule of dismissal may be addressed before finding jurisdiction. Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230. Totten involved a suit brought by a self-styled Civil War spy [against] . . . the United States to enforce its obligations under their secret espionage agreement. Id. at 3, 125 S.Ct. 1230. The Court concluded that public policy forb[ids] such a suit, id., since [e]ven a small chance that some court will order disclosure of a source's identity could well impair intelligence gathering and cause sources to close up like a clam, id. at 11, 125 S.Ct. 1230 (internal quotation marks omitted). When two alleged Cold War spies brought a similar suit, the Tenet Court held that the Totten rule of dismissal . . . represents the sort of `threshold question' [that] ... may be resolved before addressing jurisdiction, explaining that [i]t would be inconsistent with the unique and categorical nature of the Totten bar—a rule designed not merely to defeat the asserted claims, but to preclude judicial inquiry—to first allow discovery or other proceedings in order to resolve the jurisdictional question. Id. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230. 23 Justice Scalia joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize his belief that Tenet does not broaden Steel Co. He argued that when the majority opinion 24 describes the unique and categorical nature of the Totten bar . . ., it is assuredly not describing the mere everyday absence of a cause of action. As applied today, the bar of Totten is a jurisdictional one. 25 Of course even if it were not, given the squarely applicable precedent of Totten, the absence of a cause of action is so clear that [the] claims are frivolous— establishing another jurisdictional ground for dismissal that the Steel Co. majority opinion acknowledges. 26 Id. at 12, 125 S.Ct. 1230 (Scalia, J., concurring) (internal citation omitted). Although the majority opinion does not say explicitly whether Totten erects a jurisdictional bar, it does state that the rule stems from public policy concerns without mentioning Article III limitations. More significantly, the Tenet Court phrases its holding in terms that undermine Justice Scalia's contention: [T]he Totten rule of dismissal . . . represents the sort of `threshold question' [that] . . . may be resolved before addressing jurisdiction.  Id. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230 (emphasis added). 27 Any remaining doubt as to whether a federal court may, in appropriate circumstances, dismiss a case on prudential grounds prior to establishing its jurisdiction was put to rest in Sinochem International Co. v. Malaysia International Shipping Corp., ___ U.S. ____, 127 S.Ct. 1184, 167 L.Ed.2d 15 (2007). In Sinochem, the Supreme Court applied Tenet to another rule of dismissal designed . . . to preclude judicial inquiry. Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230. The Court held that a district court has discretion to respond at once to a ... forum non conveniens plea, and need not take up first any other threshold objection [such as] . . . whether it has authority to adjudicate the cause. Sinochem, 127 S.Ct. at 1188, 127 S.Ct. 1184. Since dismissal pursuant to the forum non conveniens doctrine—like a Totten dismissal—den[ies] audience to a case on the merits, the Court reasoned, it does not entail any assumption ... of substantive `law-declaring power.' Id. at 1191-93 (quoting Ruhrgas, 526 U.S. at 584-85, 119 S.Ct. 1563). No one would contend that forum non conveniens constitutes a jurisdictional ground for dismissal. Indeed, the Sinochem decision refers to a district court's discretion to dismiss pursuant to the doctrine. Id. at 1188. Sinochem thus firmly establishes that certain non-merits, nonjurisdictional issues may be addressed preliminarily, because `[j]urisdiction is vital only if the court proposes to issue a judgment on the merits.' Id. at 1191-92 (quoting Intec USA, LLC v. Engle, 467 F.3d 1038, 1041 (7th Cir. 2006)). 28 There are two lines of analysis pursuant to which it might be argued that Marshall Field 's enrolled bill rule creates a jurisdictional bar. First, because the Court based its holding in part upon separation of powers concerns, see Marshall Field, 143 U.S. at 673, 12 S.Ct. 495, the rule could be viewed as an application of the political question doctrine which is derived from Article III's controversy requirement, Massachusetts v. EPA, ___ U.S. ____, ____, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 1452, 167 L.Ed.2d 248 (2007). See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 214-15, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) (describing Marshall Field as involving considerations similar to those in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939), which were committed to congressional resolution and based on criteria of decision that necessarily escape[] the judicial grasp); Metzenbaum v. FERC, 675 F.2d 1282, 1287 (D.C.Cir. 1982) (per curiam) (citing Marshall Field as an application of the political question doctrine); see also United States v. Sitka, 845 F.2d 43, 46 (2d Cir. 1988) (Another doctrine closely related to—if not inherent in—the political question doctrine is the so-called `enrolled bill rule.'); United States v. Stahl, 792 F.2d 1438, 1440-41 (9th Cir. 1986) (characterizing extension of the enrolled bill rule as an application of the political question doctrine). But see INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 943, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983) (describing Marshall Field as address[ing] and resolv[ing] the question whether an attested enrolled bill does not become a law if it has not in fact been passed by Congress); cf. Vander Jagt v. O'Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1170 (D.C.Cir. 1983) (clarifying prudential nature of abstention in case challenging committee seat distribution). Second, because the enrolled bill rule foreordains the failure of Public Citizen's challenge, Marshall Field also could be seen as depriving the courts of subject matter jurisdiction with respect to claims that are so ... foreclosed by prior decisions of [the Supreme] Court . . . as not to involve a federal controversy. Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 89, 118 S.Ct. 1003 (internal quotation marks omitted). 29 In any event, the Marshall Field rule most certainly falls within the ambit of Tenet and Sinochem. The District Court assume[d] without deciding that [the Clerk's] motion to dismiss . . . [was] properly made pursuant to [Rule] 12(b)(6), since it concluded that the label applied d[id] not affect [its] analysis or outcome. Public Citizen, 451 F.Supp.2d at 113 n. 9. But the enrolled bill rule does not authorize a merits dismissal for failure to state a claim. Rather, like the Totten rule of dismissal and forum non conveniens, the enrolled bill rule is designed not merely to defeat the asserted claims, but to preclude judicial inquiry, Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n. 4, 125 S.Ct. 1230. Where an attested enrolled bill exists, a court must dismiss prior to adjudicating a bicameralism challenge, `denying audience to [the] case on the merits,' Sinochem, 127 S.Ct. at 1191 (quoting Ruhrgas, 526 U.S. at 585, 119 S.Ct. 1563). At a minimum, the Marshall Field rule is thus a non-merits threshold ground for dismissal. We therefore need not decide whether the enrolled bill rule creates a jurisdictional bar. Nor is it necessary for us to determine whether Public Citizen lacks standing. Accordingly, we will proceed directly to Marshall Field dismissal.