Opinion ID: 1920961
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Issue of Plaintiffs' Standing

Text: Defendant through a notice of review raised the issue of plaintiffs' standing as citizens and taxpayers of the school district to challenge the school board's meeting policies. Defendant made the same contention before the trial court in its answer and in a motion for dismissal at the close of the evidence. The court found, however, that both Channel 10 and its news director had an interest differing from the interest of the general public in the accessibility of school board meetings because plaintiffs had an economic stake in seeking and developing news coverage. The court took judicial notice of this despite the lack of direct evidence of specific loss or damage. Citizen standing to maintain actions in the public interest without express statutory authority has generally been disallowed absent some damage or injury to the individual bringing the action which is special or peculiar and different from damage or injury sustained by the general public. Caton v. Board of Education, 213 Minn. 165, 6 N.W.2d 266 (1942); 42 Am. Jur.2d, Injunctions, § 179; 43 C.J.S., Injunctions, § 22. Rights of a public nature are to be enforced by public authority rather than by individual citizens so as to avoid multiplicity of suits. Slezak v. Ousdigian, 260 Minn. 303, 110 N.W.2d 1 (1961); Green v. Independent Consol. School Dist. No. 1, 256 Minn. 185, 98 N. W.2d 86 (1959). One recognized exception to this rule is an action brought by a taxpayer to challenge an illegal expenditure. Green v. Independent Consol. School Dist. No. 1, supra ; Phillips v. Brandt, 231 Minn. 423, 43 N.W.2d 285 (1950). In a different context involving the Federal Administrative Procedure Act, it has been recognized in a number of recent United States Supreme Court decisions that the interests of the individual citizen bringing a suit do not necessarily have to be economic interests. The individual need only have a sufficient stake in the matter, whether economic or non-economic, to assure an adversary proceeding and to be among those injured. See, Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970); Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 90 S.Ct. 832, 25 L.Ed.2d 192 (1970); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). These cases are not particularly helpful in analyzing standing here, however, because § 10 of the Federal Administrative Procedure Act authorizes suit by a person adversely affected or aggrieved, 5 U.S.C.A., § 702, whereas Minn.St.1971, § 471.705 (the Minnesota Open Meeting Law) gives no express authorization to bring suit. The decisions do show that the United States Supreme Court has significantly removed many prior limitations on standing. Without statutory authority to maintain a suit, the individual must show injury to some interest, economic or otherwise, which differs from injury to the interests of other citizens generally. In Quast v. Knutson, 276 Minn. 340, 150 N.W.2d 199 (1967) and in Lindahl v. Independent School Dist. No. 306, 270 Minn. 164, 133 N.W.2d 23 (1965), we allowed individuals to seek relief under § 471.705, but in these cases the question of standing was neither raised nor passed on. The Minnesota Open Meeting Law was obviously designed to assure the public's right to be informed. All meetings of the governing body of a school district, in the language of the statute, shall be open to the public. There is nothing in the statute in any way indicating that the object of the statute was to ensure that only persons with a particular injury or those having a special interest differing from that of the general public were to have any preferred status. The plaintiffs are within the group of persons whom this statute was designed to assure that meetings of school boards would be open to the public. Thus, a right to attend open public meetings having been given to the general public, impliedly they should have standing to enforce that right. In addition to the implication from the statute that any member of the public should have standing, the trial court found that the news media have an interest in reporting news which is different from the public's interest in having meetings of public bodies open to all citizens. However correct that observation may be, we think that the basic purpose of the law was to have an informed public. The only realistic and practical means of accomplishing that end is to have open meetings with notice thereof to the news media. The law was not passed for the direct benefit of the media but rather for that of the public. Similarly, the United States Supreme Court has stated with reference to the constitutional guarantees of speech and the press: Those guarantees are not for the benefit of the press so much as for the benefit of all of us. A broadly defined freedom of the press assures the maintenance of our political system and an open society. Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 389, 87 S.Ct. 534, 543, 17 L. Ed.2d 456, 468 (1967). The trend toward broadening standing rights has usually occurred where the courts have been assured that the issues will be vigorously and adequately presented. In this context, the trial court's finding that Channel 10, Inc., has an economic interest in the availability of news for dissemination at a profit does in part at least assure that the issues here were vigorously and adequately presented. We sustain the trial court's decision that these plaintiffs had standing, basing our holding on the implications from the statute, i. e., the right of the people to be informed in a practical way by the news media, and in keeping with the trend of broadening the standing rights of litigants, particularly where the facts and issues will be vigorously, fairly, and adequately presented in an adversary setting.