Opinion ID: 785473
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Organizations' Standing To Pursue Their Members' Claims

Text: 55 The Bhopal organizations, which have not pleaded any injury to themselves, contend that the district court should have allowed them to pursue the damages claims belonging to their respective members. We see no error in the court's conclusion that the organizations lack standing to pursue those claims. 56 In determining whether an association has standing to maintain a suit to redress its members' injuries, rather than an injury to itself, we apply a three-pronged test. See, e.g., Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333, 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 511, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). Under this test, the association has standing if (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit. Hunt, 432 U.S. at 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434; see also United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 751 v. Brown Group, Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 553, 116 S.Ct. 1529, 134 L.Ed.2d 758 (1996) ( Brown Group ); International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Brock, 477 U.S. 274, 282, 106 S.Ct. 2523, 91 L.Ed.2d 228 (1986) ( Brock ); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 511, 95 S.Ct. 2197. 57 [W]hether an association has standing to invoke the court's remedial powers on behalf of its members depends in substantial measure on the nature of the relief sought. Id. at 515, 95 S.Ct. 2197. We know of no Supreme Court or federal court of appeals ruling that an association has standing to pursue damages claims on behalf of its members. In Warth, the Supreme Court held that an organization seeking to recover damages on behalf of its members lacked standing because whatever injury may have been suffered is peculiar to the individual member concerned, and both the fact and extent of injury would require individualized proof. Id. at 515-16, 95 S.Ct. 2197; see also id. at 515, 95 S.Ct. 2197 ([I]n the circumstances of this case, the damages claims are not common to the entire membership, nor shared by all in equal degree.). The Warth Court stated that 58 [i]f in a proper case the association seeks a declaration, injunction, or some other form of prospective relief, it can reasonably be supposed that the remedy, if granted, will inure to the benefit of those members of the association actually injured. Indeed, in all cases in which we have expressly recognized standing in associations to represent their members, the relief sought has been of this kind. 59 Id. at 515, 95 S.Ct. 2197. This does not mean, however, that an association automatically satisfies the third prong of the Hunt test simply by requesting equitable relief rather than damages. The organization lacks standing to assert claims of injunctive relief on behalf of its members where the fact and extent of the injury that gives rise to the claims for injunctive relief would require individualized proof, Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 515-16, 95 S.Ct. 2197, or where the relief requested [would] require[] the participation of individual members in the lawsuit, Hunt, 432 U.S. at 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434. 60 In contrast, where the organization seeks a purely legal ruling without requesting that the federal court award individualized relief to its members, the Hunt test may be satisfied. In Brock, the Supreme Court ruled that a union had standing to challenge a policy directive of the United States Department of Labor that allegedly resulted in the denial of [trade readjustment allowance] benefits to thousands of the Union's members. 477 U.S. at 281, 106 S.Ct. 2523. In so ruling, however, the Court noted that the suit did not directly seek recovery of the individual union members' denied benefits, see id. at 284, 106 S.Ct. 2523, and that the unique facts of each [union] member's claim for the benefits allegedly due him would be adjudicated by state authorities, id. at 288, 106 S.Ct. 2523. The Brock Court concluded that the union had standing because it raise[d] a pure question of law: whether the Secretary properly interpreted the Trade Act's ... eligibility provisions, id. at 287, 106 S.Ct. 2523; the union thus c[ould] litigate th[e] case without the participation of those individual claimants, id. at 288, 106 S.Ct. 2523. See also Hunt, 432 U.S. at 344, 97 S.Ct. 2434 (organization had standing where neither the interstate commerce claim nor the request for declaratory and injunctive relief require[d] individualized proof and both [we]re thus properly resolved in a group context). 61 Although the Bhopal organizations argue that they have the ability to pursue their members' damages claims without the participation of the members themselves, we disagree. The claims are that individuals have suffered bodily harm and damage to real property they own. Necessarily, each of those individuals would have to be involved in the proof of his or her claims. The district court did not err in concluding that the organizations lack standing to pursue these claims. 62 The Bhopal organizations also urge this Court to disregard the third Hunt requirement for associational standing because they seek to pursue their members' claims as class representatives in a class action pursuant to Rule 23. Although Hunt 's third prong represents a prudential rather than a constitutional requirement for standing, see Brown Group, 517 U.S. at 557, 116 S.Ct. 1529, we see no reason to relax it where, in order for the organizations to succeed in the lawsuit, there must be participation by the members themselves. Associational standing carves only a narrow exception from the ordinary rule that a litigant `must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties,' Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 474, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197). If the involvement of individual members of an association is necessary, either because the substantive nature of the claim or the form of the relief sought requires their participation, we see no sound reason to allow the organization standing to press their claims, even where it seeks to do so as a putative class representative. In such circumstances, the standing of an association is limited to bringing claims arising out of injuries that the organization, not simply its members, suffered. 63 For similar reasons, we conclude that the organizations' claims seeking relief for their members in the form of reimbursement for the costs of medical monitoring of their physical condition were dismissible for lack of associational standing. In Rent Stabilization Ass'n v. Dinkins, 5 F.3d 591, 596 (2d Cir.1993), for example, we upheld a ruling that an association of landlords lacked standing to bring an as-applied Takings Clause challenge to a rent-control law on behalf of its members because the Court would have to engage in an ad hoc factual inquiry for each landlord who alleges that he has suffered a taking, including determin[ing] the landlord's particular return based on a host of individualized financial data, and... investigat[ing] the reasons for any failure to obtain an adequate return. Id. (emphasis in original). Proof of claims for medical monitoring under New York law would similarly require individualized inquiries. In Abusio v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc., 238 A.D.2d 454, 656 N.Y.S.2d 371 (2d Dep't 1997) (mem.), the court held that in order to prevail on such a claim, a plaintiff must establish both that he or she was in fact exposed to the disease-causing agent and that there is a `rational basis' for his or her fear of contracting the disease, id. at 454, 656 N.Y.S.2d 371, 656 N.Y.S.2d at 372, which the court construed to mean the clinically demonstrable presence of a carcinogen in the plaintiff's body or some indication of a disease induced by the carcinogen, id. at 455, 656 N.Y.S.2d at 372. We cannot envision a medical monitoring program that would not require the participation of the organizations' individual members. 64 We take a similar view of the Bhopal organizations' request for remediation of their members' private properties. Participation by individual property owners would be needed to permit identification of which properties were contaminated. As to each property so identified, individual assessments would be required as to the nature, breadth, and severity of the contamination, and consideration would have to be given to, inter alia, each owner's actual and intended use or uses of his or her land, in order to permit a determination as to which specific remediation methods would be appropriate for the clean-up of that property. We conclude that, because the individual participation of the organizations' members would be necessary before an injunction ordering remediation of their private properties could be issued, the Bhopal organizations lack standing to pursue this form of relief on behalf of their members. 65 In sum, we affirm the district court's dismissal of the claims asserted by the organizations, given our conclusions that determinations as to the injuries suffered by individual members and the needs of each such individual for medical monitoring and/or for remediation of his or her own property cannot be made without the participation of the members. We therefore need not consider the district court's conclusion that medical monitoring would be impracticable. 66