Opinion ID: 3013317
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Third Party Standing

Text: The Storinos present an alternative theory of standing for their equal protection claim. They allege that the Ordinance “excludes low and moderate income persons from [the Borough] by removing rooming/boarding houses as permitted uses within Point Pleasant Beach and by removing hotels/motels from the marine commercial zone” in violation of the equal protection clause. (Aa562 at ¶ 9) During oral argument, the Storinos described this theory as “stand[ing] in the shoes of the low income persons to assert the rights of that class” who want to live in the housing the Storinos provide in the Borough.2 This theory is similar to that presented by the plaintiffs in Warth. In that case, the plaintiffs, various organizations and individuals operating and living in Rochester, New York, brought suit against an adjacent town claiming that the town’s zoning ordinance effectively excluded persons of low and moderate income from living there. 422 U.S. at 493. The individual plaintiffs in that case asserted standing as members of the class of low and moderate income 2. The Storinos also asserted taxpayer standing during oral argument. They cannot have standing merely on the basis of their status as taxpayers. The Supreme Court has prohibited generalized grievances, which prevents individuals from suing if their only injury is as a taxpayer concerned with having the government follow the law. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573-78; Warth, 422 U.S. at 499. At present, the only acknowledged exception to this rule arises when a plaintiff challenges a government expenditure as violating the establishment clause. See Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction § 2.3.5 (3d ed. 1999). The Storinos’ equal protection challenge does not fit within this recognized exception to the prohibition against taxpayer suits, and they have not presented any reason to expand upon this exception or create another. 8 persons. Id. at 502. The Supreme Court found that allegation alone to be insufficient for standing purposes because “the fact that these [plaintiffs] share attributes common to persons who may have been excluded from residence in the town is an insufficient predicate for the conclusion that [plaintiffs] themselves have been excluded . . . .” Id. Here, the Storinos have conceded that they are not members of the class of low and moderate income persons described in their Complaint. Unlike the individual plaintiffs in Warth, they do not even allege that they are among the class of people whose equal protection rights have been violated by the adoption of this Ordinance. Their second asserted basis for standing, therefore, runs afoul of the holding in Warth that “a plaintiff who seeks to challenge exclusionary zoning practices must allege specific, concrete facts demonstrating that the challenged practices harm him, and that he personally would benefit in a tangible way from the court’s intervention.” Id. at 508 (emphasis added). In general, a litigant may assert only his own legal rights or interests, and can not “rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.” Powers, 499 U.S. at 410. The Court has recognized a limited right of litigants to bring actions on behalf of third parties only when the following three criteria are met: (1) the litigant has suffered an injury in fact giving him a sufficiently concrete interest in the outcome of the issue; (2) the litigant has a close relation to the third party; and (3) there exists some hindrance to the third party’s ability to protect his own interests. Id. at 410-11 (citing Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976); Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106 (1976)). This well-settled precedent makes clear that it is only possible to find third party standing when there is also an injury in fact alleged by the first party plaintiff. As was explained above, the Storinos have not alleged an injury in fact. Nonetheless, in their supplemental brief, the Storinos claim that their “standing in the shoes of low income people” argument is analogous to the Craig v. Boren form of third party standing. In Craig, the operation of a state law inflicted injury upon a beer vendor because she was “obliged either to heed the 9 statutory discrimination, thereby incurring a direct economic injury through the constriction of the buyers’ market, or to disobey the statutory command and suffer, . . . ‘sanctions and perhaps loss of license.’ ” 429 U.S. at 194 (citations omitted). Accordingly, the Supreme Court found that the beer vendor met the injury in fact requirement for first party standing. Id. at 194-95. The Court found that the beer vendor was also entitled to “assert those concomitant rights of . . . [young males] that would be ‘diluted or adversely affected’ should her constitutional challenge fail and the statutes remain in force.” Id. at 195. The Storinos argue that, like the beer vendor who argued on behalf of third party beer buyers in Craig, they should be permitted to litigate their claim “by acting as advocates of the rights of third parties who seek access to their market and function.” (Storinos’ Supp. Brief at 9) The crucial distinction between the beer vendor plaintiff in Craig and the property owner plaintiff in our case is that the beer vendor alleged facts sufficient to meet the injury in fact requirement for first party standing. Craig, 429 U.S. at 194-95. As we have explained, the Storinos have not met the injury in fact requirement. Accordingly, the Storinos have mistakenly interpreted Craig to stand for the proposition that where the plaintiff is asserting a claim on behalf of those who would have standing, he has standing imputed to him.