Opinion ID: 770692
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Other Students, Parents and Others Likely to Attend Future Graduations Have Standing

Text: 19 Appellants argue that the other students, parents of Oroville students and others likely to attend future graduations joined in the third amended complaint have standing to bring a claim to enjoin the school from prohibiting sectarian speeches and prayers as part of the graduation ceremony. This argument fails because any injury to these parties is too speculative to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III. 20 Article III standing requires an injury that is actual or imminent, not `conjectural' or `hypothetical.'  Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990) (quoting City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 101-02 (1983)). In the context of injunctive relief, the plaintiff must demonstrate a real or immediate threat of an irreparable injury. See Lyons, 461 U.S. at 110-11. In Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 13 F.3d 1327 (9th Cir. 1994) (per curiam), we held that a company unlawfully denied the opportunity to compete for a cable franchise lacked standing to bring damage claims against the city for profits the company would have received had it been awarded a franchise. Id. at 1333-34. We concluded the alleged injury was too uncertain because it depended on the very speculative assumption that the company would have received the franchise as the most qualified competitor and would have built and operated a profitable cable franchise . . . if it had only been given the chance. Id. at 1334. Similarly, the other students, parents and others likely to attend future Oroville graduations lack standing because the likelihood that they will suffer a future injury depends upon the highly speculative assumption that a student seeking to give a sectarian speech or prayer will be chosen as valedictorian or salutatorian, or will be elected by classmates to deliver an invocation. 5 This threat of injury is neither real nor immediate. Cf. Eggar v. Livingston, 40 F.3d 312, 316-17 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding that plaintiffs alleging city had policy of imprisoning indigent defendants without appointing counsel did not have standing to bring declaratory or injunctive claims because the likelihood that they would suffer future injury relied on a  `chain of speculative contingencies'  (quoting Nelson v. King County, 895 F.2d 1248, 1252 (9th Cir. 1990)). 21