Opinion ID: 2198217
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Associational Standing

Text: In the usual case brought by an organization claiming that an agency improperly refused to prepare [or require] an environmental impact statement ... standing is established derivatively, through the organization's members. Foundation on Economic Trends v. Lyng, 291 U.S.App.D.C. 365, 369, 943 F.2d 79, 83 (1991). Friends initially asserted in Superior Court that it had standing to sue on behalf of its members, whom it described as persons residing in the vicinity of 3883 Connecticut Avenue who recreate in and enjoy the benefits of nearby Rock Creek Park. We do not doubt that if Friends had such members, it would have standing as their representative to maintain an action challenging the District's failure to require Clark to prepare an EIS. The procedural injury implicit in agency failure to prepare [or require] an EISthe creation of a risk that serious environmental impacts will be overlookedis itself a sufficient `injury in fact' to support standing, provided this injury is alleged by a plaintiff having a sufficient geographical nexus to the site of the challenged project [to] expect [] to suffer whatever environmental consequences the project may have. Sabine River Auth. v. Texas Water Conservation Assoc., 951 F.2d 669, 674 (5th Cir.1992) (citation omitted); accord, Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 & 572 n. 7, 112 S.Ct. 2130; Sierra Club, 405 U.S. at 735, 92 S.Ct. 1361. The environmental interests of persons living near Clark's construction site are germane to Friends' organizational purpose, and their individual participation is not essential to Friends' lawsuit. See Hunt, 432 U.S. at 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434. The persons whom Friends claims to represent are not its members, however. By the terms of its articles of incorporation, Friends has no members. Confronted with this inconvenient fact, Friends argues in this court that it nonetheless has standing to sue as the representative of its supporters among the neighborhood residents whose environmental interests are at stake. These supporters, Friends suggests, are its de facto if not its de jure members. The record, though, does not bear out this claim. While Friends has never identified them with specificity, we accept that it does have at least some supporters who would have standing in their own right to sue the District and Clark over the failure to prepare an EIS for the construction project at 3883 Connecticut Avenue. The record discloses that three area residents incorporated Friends and formed its initial board of directors. One of the incorporators is the president of Friends. He and two other residents of the immediate neighborhood-one of them a new member of Friends' board-furnished affidavits regarding the impact of the construction project in support of Friends' motion for a preliminary injunction. It is fair to consider these persons as supporters of Friends and its lawsuit. The question, though, is whether such supporters are equivalent to members for representational purposes. For guidance in answering this question, we look to the Supreme Court's analysis of a similar question in Hunt, 432 U.S. at 344-45, 97 S.Ct. 2434. The organization in that case was a commission created by the State of Washington to protect and promote the interests of the state's apple industry. The Court held that while this commission did not have members per se, it had standing to assert the claims of Washington apple growers and dealers in a lawsuit challenging a North Carolina law that discriminated against Washington apples. See id. at 345, 97 S.Ct. 2434. First, the Court noted that for all practical purposes the commission functioned as a traditional trade association serving a specialized segment of the State's economic community which is the primary beneficiary of its activities. Id. at 344, 97 S.Ct. 2434. Second, while they were not designated members of the commission, the state's apple growers and dealers possessed all of the indicia of membership. Id. They alone served on the commission, elected its members, and financed its activities, including the lawsuit which the commission brought on their behalf. In a very real sense, the Court found, the Commission represents the State's growers and dealers and provides the means by which they express their collective views and protect their collective interests. Id. at 345, 97 S.Ct. 2434. Finally, the Court noted, there was a financial nexus between the litigation interests of the commission and its grower and dealer constituents; for if the legal challenge to the discriminatory North Carolina law failed, the resulting reduction in constituent revenues from sales of Washington apples would be reflected in a corresponding reduction in the annual assessments that the growers and dealers paid to the commission. Id. Taking these considerations into account, the Court stated that it would exalt form over substance to differentiate between the [commission] and a traditional trade association representing the individual growers and dealers who collectively form its constituency. Id. Consequently, the Court held, the commission had standing to sue in a representational capacity. It is no small matter for an organization to assert the right to sue, not on behalf of itself, but on behalf of others. We take from Hunt that such a right requires the representational relationship to be a strong one, in order to ensure the fidelity of the organization to those for whom it claims to speak. The substance of an association-member relationship is more important than the form, but Hunt teaches that the substance must be present. The Circuit Court of Appeals reached much the same conclusion in American Legal Found. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 257 U.S.App.D.C. 189, 808 F.2d 84 (1987). In that case the American Legal Foundation (ALF), a nonprofit media law center with no members, petitioned for review of an FCC decision not to investigate its fairness complaints against the American Broadcasting Companies (ABC). ALF claimed standing to sue as the representative of regular ABC News viewers who agreed with its complaints, some of whom furnished affidavits reciting that ALF represented their viewing interests. See id., 257 U.S.App.D.C. at 193, 808 F.2d at 88. Following Hunt, the D.C. Circuit rejected this claim of representational standing because ALF's relationship to its supporters bore none of the indicia of a traditional membership organization. Id., 257 U.S.App.D.C. at 195, 808 F.2d at 90. ALF serve[d] no discrete, stable group of persons with a definable set of common interests; its constituency of supporters [was] completely open-ended. Id. ALF's supporters did not play any role in selecting ALF's leadership, guiding ALF's activities, or financing those activities. Id. Moreover, the court perceived no linkage between ALF's interest in the outcome of the litigation and the interests of its supporters. Id. In short, ALF was not the functional equivalent of a traditional membership organization, id., and the court declined to permit it to premise standing on the fact that it ha[d] located certain individuals who agree[d] with its complaint. Id., 257 U.S.App.D.C. at 194, 808 F.2d at 91. Clark's summary judgment motion contested Friends' standing on the ground that its articles of incorporation precluded it from having members. Friends bore the burden of establishing in response that it had at least a de facto membership relationship with the supporters whom it claimed to represent. Friends did not shoulder that burden. A supporter is not the same as a member, and a supportive relationship is not the functional equivalent of a membership association. Friends made no effort to show that the amorphous population of its supporters in the North Cleveland Park neighborhood constituted a specialized segment of the... community, Hunt, 432 U.S. at 344, 97 S.Ct. 2434, or a discrete, stable group of persons with a definable set of common interests, American Legal Found., 257 U.S.App.D.C. at 195, 808 F.2d at 90. More important, the indicia of membership to which the Supreme Court looked in Hunt are absent here, as Friends' putative supporters have no power to elect its directors (or its officers), need not make up even a majority of its governing board, andso far as the record showsdo not fund its activities generally or the present litigation specifically. Friends presented no evidence that its supporters guide its actions or have control over the organization. Nor did Friends present evidence of a financial nexus, Hunt, 432 U.S. at 345, 97 S.Ct. 2434, between itself and its supporters. We cannot uphold Friends' associational standing on the theory that it is merely a representative of its directors and is suing to vindicate their interests. Friends has not claimed that it is only an association of, by and for its directors, created to serve their specific interests and suing only on their behalf. Absent some such claim with support in the record, we cannot treat the corporation for standing purposes as though it were just its directors' mouthpiece. To do that we would have to ignore the potential for conflict between the directors' personal interests and the interests of the organization that the directors are obliged to pursue. It is true that if a nonprofit corporation has no members, its directors have all of the authority of members and may take any action that members would be permitted to take. See D.C.Code § 29-301.16(d) (2001). But as the managers of a nonprofit corporation's affairs, see D.C.Code § 29-301.02(7), directors are conceptually different from members in a critical respect. The directors owe their fiduciary duties to the corporation. Fletcher Cyc. Corp. § 844.10; see also Wisconsin Ave. Assocs., Inc. v. 2720 Wisconsin Ave. Coop. Ass'n, 441 A.2d 956, 963 (D.C.1982) (The fiduciary concept is not limited to stock corporations but applies to membership organizations as well.). The directors must act in the utmost good faith, and this good faith forbids placing [themselves] in a position where [their] individual interest clashes with [their] duty to the corporation. Fletcher Cyc. Corp. § 837.50. The directors' fiduciary obligation to a corporation means that they must manage the corporation solely in its best interest, not as a vehicle for promoting their personal beliefs or causes. We conclude that Friends did not meet its burden to establish that it has standing to seek redress for the injuries suffered by its supporters. We turn to Friends' contention that it has standing to sue for injuries that it suffered itself.