Opinion ID: 2207621
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: General Principles of Standing

Text: The Superior Court rejected the EAB's ruling that an appellant's interest in a DNREC decision must be distinguishable from the interest shared by the public in general. Under traditional standards, a law that creates a duty to the general public does not give rise to privately enforceable rights. See, e.g. Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 78, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 2087, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975); J.I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U.S. 426, 84 S.Ct. 1555, 12 L.Ed.2d 423 (1964). However, after reviewing several cases, the Superior Court determined that [t]he law [has] moved away from the strict requirement that a party asserting a claim must assert an injury that differs from that received by the public at large. In so concluding, the court distinguished two Delaware Supreme Court cases that as a general matter required a heightened interest to achieve standing. First, in Stuart Kingston, Inc. v. Robinson, Del.Supr., 596 A.2d 1378 (1991), this Court held that in order to achieve standing, a plaintiff must have an interest distinguishable from the greater public. Specifically, the Court noted: The concept of standing, in its procedural sense, refers to the right of a party to invoke the jurisdiction of a court to enforce a claim or redress a grievance. It is concerned only with the question of who is entitled to mount a legal challenge and not with the merits of the subject matter of the controversy. In order to achieve standing, the plaintiff's interest in the controversy must be distinguishable from the interest shared by other members of a class or the public in general. Unlike the federal courts, where standing may be subject to stated constitutional limits, state courts apply the concept of standing as a matter of self-restraint to avoid the rendering of advisory opinions at the behest of parties who are mere intermeddlers. Id. at 1382 (citations omitted). Because Stuart Kingston involved a private contract dispute not involving public property, the Superior Court determined that the foregoing discussion was irrelevant here. Second, this Court has discussed standing in Gannett Co., Inc. v. State, Del.Supr., 565 A.2d 895 (1989). In Gannett, we held that [t]he test of standing is whether: 1) there is a claim of injury-in-fact; and 2) the interest sought to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question. The Superior Court distinguished Gannett on the grounds that it was based on a constitutional, not statutory, analysis. The language cited above from Gannett is derived from the United States Supreme Court case of Assoc. of Data Processing Serv. Org., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153-54, 90 S.Ct. 827, 829-30, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970). An interest is sufficient for the purposes of standing if the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question. Id. Based upon this plain language, the general test laid out in Data Processing applies to statutes as well as constitutional inquiries.