Opinion ID: 2747927
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standing Based on Enhanced Risk of Injury

Text: Our judicial power is limited by Article III of the Constitution to actual cases and controversies. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975). One element of the case-orcontroversy requirement is that plaintiffs must establish that they -6- have standing to sue. See Blum v. Holder, 744 F.3d 790, 795 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138, 1146 (2013)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This requirement 'is founded in concern about the proper -- and properly limited -- role of the courts in a democratic society.' Id. at 795-96 (quoting Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492-93 (2009)). To satisfy this standing requirement, a plaintiff must sufficiently plead three elements: injury in fact, traceability, and redressability. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992). An injury in fact is an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) 'actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.' See id. at 560 (internal citations omitted) (quoting Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990)). Imminence, which plays a central role in cases of probabilistic standing, is concededly a somewhat elastic concept. See Clapper, 133 S. Ct. at 1147 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n.2) (internal quotation marks omitted). [I]ts purpose . . . is to ensure that the alleged injury is not too speculative for Article III purposes. See id. (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n.2) (internal quotation marks omitted). Cases claiming standing based on risk, such as this, potentially involve two injuries: (1) a possible future injury that -7- may or may not happen (i.e., the harm threatened); and (2) a present injury that is the cost or inconvenience created by the increased risk of the first, future injury (e.g., the cost of mitigation). See Blum, 744 F.3d at 796 (quoting Mangual v. RotgerSabat, 317 F.3d 45, 56-57 (1st Cir. 2003)) (identifying two injuries in context of First Amendment challenge: the present injury, a chilling effect, caused by the threat of future injury, criminal prosecution); see also Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 155 (2010) (recognizing that present costs to mitigate risk of crop infection would occur even if crops were never actually infected). These cases require caution, because although one of the alleged injuries is present, satisfying imminence, that injury may still be speculative. This is because the alleged present injury depends on the plaintiff's response to an increased risk, and whether his or her response constitutes a reaction for which compensation is owed or constitutes a mere attempt to manufacture standing. Compare Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 184-85 (2000) (finding standing where plaintiffs responded to increased risk of health hazards from pollution by refraining from use of the North Tyger River), with Clapper, 133 S. Ct. at 1151 (denying standing for incurr[ing] . . . costs as a reasonable reaction to a risk where risked harm was not certainly impending). For this -8- reason, cases claiming standing based on risk fall into at least two categories. In the first, where standing is more frequently found, the present injury is linked to a statute or regulation or standard of conduct that allegedly has been or will soon be violated. See, e.g., Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 181-84; Baur v. Veneman, 352 F.3d 625, 634-35 (2d Cir. 2003). Cases in this first category are easier, in part because the legislature and executive agencies -- the branches tasked with evaluating risks and developing safety standards -- have already identified the risk as injurious. See, e.g., Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 181-84 (finding that refraining from using a polluted river constituted injury in fact even though the district court found that the permit violations at issue . . . did not result in any health risk or environmental harm); Baur, 352 F.3d at 634-35 (noting the tight connection between the type of injury . . . allege[d] and the fundamental goals of the statutes . . . sue[d] under); Cent. Delta Water Agency v. United States, 306 F.3d 938, 948 (9th Cir. 2002) (explaining that to require actual evidence of environmental harm, rather than an increased risk based on a violation of the statute, misunderstands the nature of environmental harm (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). In the second category, the present injury has not been identified and so is entirely dependent on the alleged risk of -9- future injury. See, e.g., Blum, 744 F.3d at 796 (discussing case where present chilling effect dependent on threat of specific future harm). Cases falling in this second category require greater caution and scrutiny because the assessment of risk is both less certain, and whether the risk constitutes injury is likely to be more controversial. See, e.g., Katz, 672 F.3d at 80 (noting split over whether victims of mere data breach have suffered injury in fact).2 Indeed, not all risks constitute injury. As the D.C. Circuit has noted, were all purely speculative 'increased risks' deemed injurious, the entire requirement of 'actual or imminent injury' would be rendered moot, because all hypothesized, nonimminent 'injuries' could be dressed up as 'increased risk of future injury.' Ctr. for Law & Educ., 396 F.3d at 1161; see also Baur, 352 F.3d at 637 (noting the potentially expansive and nebulous nature of enhanced risk claims). For these reasons, the plaintiff, who always carries the burden of establishing standing, faces a more difficult task when alleging enhanced risk without alleging a statutory or regulatory violation (actual or imminent). See Blum, 744 F.3d at 795 (quoting Clapper, 133 S. Ct. at 1148) 2 Compare Krottner v. Starbucks Corp., 628 F.3d 1139 (9th Cir. 2010), and Pisciotta v. Old Nat'l Bancorp, 499 F.3d 629 (7th Cir. 2007) (finding standing), with Reilly v. Ceridian Corp., 664 F.3d 38 (3d Cir. 2011) (denying standing). -10- (The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing standing. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Kerin's complaint falls into the latter category. Although he argues that his injury is one recognized under Massachusetts law governing dangerously defective product[s], he concedes that the CSST in question does not violate any applicable regulatory standard, Kerin, 2014 WL 67239, at  (emphasis added), as is required to state a claim for a dangerously defective product in the absence of actual damage, see Iannacchino, 888 N.E.2d at 888. His purported present injury, overpayment for a defective product and the cost of replacement, is thus entirely dependent on an unsupported conclusion that the CSST is defective, coupled with a speculative risk of future injury (fire in the event of a lightning strike). We evaluate his claim in light of these distinctions.