Opinion ID: 2674677
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the district court’s reasons for dismissing

Text: MR. CARLTON’S CLAIMS DUE TO A LACK OF STANDING WERE ERRONEOUS ¶22 The district court’s primary reason for granting Adoption Center’s Motion to Dismiss was that it believed Mr. Carlton lacked standing to assert both the constitutional and tort claims that were set forth in his Amended Petition. Mr. Carlton argues that this conclusion was erroneous. While we agree with Mr. Carlton that the district court’s reasons for finding a lack of standing were faulty, we nevertheless agree with its conclusion that Mr. Carlton does, in fact, lack standing to assert these claims, as discussed in the next section. ¶23 Utah’s standing requirements are similar to the federal court system “in that they contain the same three basic elements— injury, causation, and redressability.”12 And although there are a few differences between our state courts and the federal system,13 these differences are irrelevant here. In essence, Mr. Carlton claims that the Act deprived him of his constitutional right to a meaningful opportunity to develop a relationship with the child and that he was damaged by the allegedly tortious conduct of 12 Brown v. Dep’t. of Natural Res., 2010 UT 14, ¶ 17, 228 P.3d 747. 13 See id. ¶ 17 (explaining that “[a]lthough our standing requirements and the federal standing requirements are similar . . . they are not identical”); Cedar Mountain Envtl., Inc. v. Tooele Cnty., 2009 UT 48, ¶ 9, 214 P.3d 95 (reiterating that a plaintiff can maintain standing by asserting an “actual or potential” injury (emphasis added)). Federal law, in contrast, requires “actual” injury. Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138, 1147 (2013) (stating that in order to have Article III standing, the injury “must be concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 9 CARLTON v. BROWN Opinion of the Court Adoption Center and Ms. Brown.14 Therefore, he asked that the district court strike down the Act on constitutional grounds and award him damages against Adoption Center and Ms. Brown in tort. ¶24 With respect to the constitutional claims, however, the district court reasoned that “because Carlton never established parental rights to the child [by complying with the Act], he lacks standing to raise constitutional arguments or otherwise contest the adoption.” In other words, the district court concluded that Mr. Carlton lacked standing to challenge the Act because he did not have any rights to the child in the first place (due to his failure to comply with the Act) and therefore could not allege an injury. ¶25 This argument fails due to circularity and was therefore erroneous. If a plaintiff wishes to challenge the constitutionality of a statute and has adequately shown harm, causation, and redressability, the allegedly unconstitutional statute cannot then be used as grounds for denying that plaintiff standing. For if it could be so utilized, it would be impossible to raise a constitutional challenge to any statute, no matter how unconstitutional, provided that the statute itself denied standing to putative plaintiffs who wish to challenge it. Therefore, we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing Mr. Carlton’s constitutional claims based on this reasoning. ¶26 A similar analysis applies to the tort claims asserted in Mr. Carlton’s Amended Petition, which the district court also appears to have dismissed due primarily to a lack of standing. In essence, the district court reasoned that because Mr. Carlton failed to comply with the Act, he did not have any rights to the child to begin with and thus could not show damages due to Ms. Brown’s and Adoption Center’s allegedly tortious interference with those rights. While it may be true that Mr. Carlton did not have any rights to the child due to his failure to comply with the Act, the district court’s argument presupposes that the Act constitutionally extinguished the rights that Mr. Carlton claims were violated by Ms. Brown’s and Adoption Center’s allegedly tortious conduct. But given that the district court had not previously analyzed the constitutionality of the Act, this conclusion was premature and 14 See In re T.B., 2010 UT 42, ¶ 31, 232 P.3d 1026 (discussing this right, as recognized in Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983)). 10 Cite as: 2014 UT 6 Opinion of the Court therefore erroneous. The district court should have first determined whether the statute constitutionally deprived Mr. Carlton of the rights that were allegedly violated by the tortious conduct. Only then, if the district court decided against him on the constitutional claims, would it be justified in dismissing Mr. Carlton’s tort claims due to an inability to allege a redressable injury. ¶27 These errors notwithstanding, for the reasons stated below we agree with the district court’s ultimate conclusion that, given the current state of the pleadings, Mr. Carlton lacks standing to bring a constitutional challenge to the Act.