Opinion ID: 76247
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discussion-Article III Standing

Text: 26 Article III of the Constitution confines the reach of federal jurisdiction to Cases and Controversies. U.S. Const. art. III, § 2. This limitation defines with respect to the Judicial Branch the idea of separation of powers on which the Federal Government is founded. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559-60, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1990) (describing how standing interfaces with separation of powers and breadth of judicial power). These values are reflected in the three required elements for constitutional standing: (1) an `injury in fact'—a harm suffered by the plaintiff that is `concrete' and `actual or imminent', not `conjectural' or `hypothetical;' (2) causation—a fairly traceable connection between the plaintiff's injury and the complained-of conduct of the defendant; and (3) redressability—a likelihood that the requested relief will redress the alleged injury. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 102-04, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 1016-17, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998); see also Vt. Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 771, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 1861-62, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000); 31 Foster Children v. Bush, 329 F.3d 1255, 1263 (11th Cir.2003). 8 When the attack on standing occurs via a motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs can no longer rest on their allegations, but must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts which for the purpose of summary judgment will be taken as true. Region 8 Forest Serv. Timber Purchasers Council v. Alcock, 993 F.2d 800, 806 (11th Cir.1993) (internal quotations omitted); see also Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. at 2137. Whether a plaintiff has standing to bring a suit is a legal issue that we review de novo. Region 8, 993 F.2d at 806.
27 The parties do not dispute that harm to economic interests presents a cognizable injury for purposes of standing. Bennett, 520 U.S. at 167-68, 117 S.Ct. at 1163-64; see also Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417, 433, 118 S.Ct. 2091, 2100, 141 L.Ed.2d 393 (1998) (recognizing probable economic injury resulting from governmental actions that alter competitive conditions as sufficient to satisfy Article III injury-in-fact requirement); Clark v. City of Lakewood, 259 F.3d 996, 1007 (9th Cir.2001) (holding adult entertainment business's alleged financial loss as result of city ordinance was sufficient to establish injury in fact); Adams v. Watson, 10 F.3d 915, 921 (1st Cir.1993) (While the project is not yet completed, and hence specific proof of competitive injury is not possible, it could hardly be thought that administrative action likely to cause harm cannot be challenged until it is too late. (internal quotations omitted)); cf. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562-63, 112 S.Ct. at 2137 (the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of standing). The Government contends, however, that the Coalition has not produced evidence showing that the economic injuries of its members are sufficiently concrete and imminent to confer standing here. 28 The injury in fact element of Article III standing does not require a plaintiff to wait until an injury occurs to bring suit. 31 Foster Children, 329 F.3d at 1265. However, the injury must be imminent—not abstract, hypothetical, or conjectural. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. at 2136. Imminence, while an elastic concept, requires that the injury proceed with a high degree of immediacy, so as to reduce the possibility of deciding a case in which no injury would have occurred at all. Id. at 565 n. 2, 112 S.Ct. at 2138-39 n. 2. In 31 Foster Children, we elaborated on the concept of immediacy for purposes of considering allegations of future injuries. 329 F.3d at 1266. There, foster children sued the administrators of Florida's foster care system, seeking prospective relief with respect to, inter alia, their claims for the substantive due process rights to safe care and prompt services and First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to family associations. Id. at 1261-62. The administrators argued that most of the plaintiffs failed to allege either a palpable risk of injury or imminent harm; instead, the defendants contended, the plaintiffs complained mainly of past harms. Id. at 1265. We concluded that the plaintiffs in the defendants' physical custody had standing with respect to the substantive due process claims, as did the plaintiffs who were in the defendants' physical custody with siblings for the associational claims. Id. at 1266. We reasoned that the plaintiffs were in the defendants' care involuntarily and could not avoid exposure to the challenged conduct. Id. The alleged future injuries were similar to an injurious policy, rather than being conjectural injuries whose occurrences were premised on a past random act. Id. Indeed, we concluded that the alleged pattern and practice in this case presents a substantial likelihood that the alleged injury will occur. Id. 29 Similarly here, the Coalition is operating against the backdrop of a continuing policy that was triggered by the listing and is effectuated by the machinery of the ESA. While the Coalition's evidence of past events such as the FWS' intervention and the comment letter might by itself be insufficient to establish standing for prospective relief, in this context the evidence illustrates what is apparent from a review of the ESA: the listing has injured the Coalition's members and will continue to do so. Cf. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 105, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 1667, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (reasoning plaintiff lacked standing to pursue injunctive relief stemming from one-time traffic stop and choking incident). Messrs. Grogan, Haun, and Oates have all indicated that Coalition members operate their businesses subject to federal licenses and permits; the Government does not dispute that portions of the members' licensed or permitted activities take place in historical Alabama sturgeon habitat. It is reasonable to infer from the Coalition's evidence that its members have settled expectations with respect to the viability of their businesses—expectations that the members intend to guard not in the speculative future, but constantly. The listing adds another layer of concrete economic considerations that may be in tension with the members' pre-listing assumptions. Indeed, all of the affiants averred that Coalition members are now modifying their facilities, altering their operations, or expending resources to oppose such modifications; further, they stated that the consultation requirement is causing Coalition members injury in the form of planning, studies, and delays. The Coalition need not present detailed descriptions of actual expenses, as the district court would have required. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 565 n. 2, 112 S.Ct. at 2138 n. 2 (internal quotations omitted). Where standing is premised on future injury, its imminence ( though not its precise extent ) must be established. Id. (emphasis added). 9 We therefore conclude that the Coalition presented sufficient evidence for purposes of summary judgment to show injury in fact.
30 The Government also contends that the Coalition cannot meet the second and third prongs of the standing test. The showing of traceability must not be too attenuated, Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. at 757, 104 S.Ct. at 3328, but the indirectness of the injury does not necessarily deprive the person harmed of standing. Warth, 422 U.S. at 505, 95 S.Ct. at 2208. Nevertheless, 31 [w]hen ... a plaintiff's asserted injury arises from the government's allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of someone else, much more is needed.... The existence of one or more of the essential elements of standing depends on the unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts and whose exercise of broad and legitimate discretion the courts cannot presume either to control or predict... it becomes the burden of the plaintiff to adduce facts showing that those choices have been or will be made in such a manner as to produce causation and permit redressability of injury. 32 Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562, 112 S.Ct. at 2137 (internal citations and quotations omitted); see also Tenn. Valley Auth. v. E.P.A, 278 F.3d 1184, 1205 (11th Cir.2002), op. withdrawn in part by 336 F.3d 1236, 2003 WL 21452521 (11th Cir. June 24, 2003). 33 The Supreme Court has explained that the fairly traceable requirement does not necessitate injury as to which the defendant's actions are the very last step in the chain of causation. Bennett, 520 U.S. at 168-69, 117 S.Ct. at 1164; see also Tenn. Valley Auth. v. E.P.A., 278 F.3d at 1207. Indeed, economic injuries produced by determinative or coercive effect upon the action of someone else are distinguishable from those that are merely a result of independent actors not before the court. Id. 34 This case is unlike those in which a plaintiff sues in an attempt to change the behavior of a party not before the court such as Allen v. Wright. In Allen, the plaintiffs challenged the IRS' grant of tax exemptions to racially discriminatory schools. 468 U.S. at 757, 104 S.Ct. at 3328. The Supreme Court reasoned that the plaintiffs' injury—a diminished ability to receive a desegregated education—was a result not of the IRS' policies, but of decisions by independent actors such as school officials and parents who were not before the Court. Id. at 758, 104 S.Ct. at 3328. These points were made more apparent in the Court's redressability analysis: it was entirely speculative whether a withdrawal of the tax exemptions would cause a private school to change its discriminatory policies. Id. It was similarly speculative whether parents would withdraw their children from these schools and place the children in public schools as a result of a withdrawal of tax exemptions. Id. Further, it was not at all clear that in a particular community, a large enough number of the numerous relevant school officials and parents would reach decisions that collectively would have a significant impact on the racial composition of the public schools. Id. 35 The circumstances here are more akin to those in Bennett v. Spear. There, ranch operators and irrigation districts challenged a biological opinion issued by the FWS because it induced the Bureau of Reclamation to limit the amount of irrigation water available to the plaintiffs. 520 U.S. at 167, 117 S.Ct. at 1163. Although the Bureau of Reclamation was not a party before the Court, the Supreme Court reasoned that the FWS' biological opinion had a powerful coercive effect. Id. at 169, 1164. Given the procedural mandates of the ESA, the biological opinion alter[ed] the legal regime to which the agency action [was] subject. Id.; see also Tenn. Valley Auth. v. E.P.A., 278 F.3d at 1207 (holding that traceability was met for power companies' standing where TVA's compliance with EPA's orders would result in diminished energy reserves imposing greater costs on power companies). 36 Here, the Coalition's injuries are produced by the coercive effect of the ESA as implemented by the FWS or NMFS: federal agencies and Coalition members must at least consider whether consultation is necessary for their activities. This point is particularly evident in light of the possibility of the Coalition's members running afoul of the take prohibition if they or acting agencies fail to consider the Alabama sturgeon at all with respect to their activities in its historical habitat. 10 For these reasons, we cannot accept the Government's argument that consultation is voluntary because any costs expended by the Coalition are costs it has chosen to expend. The ESA establishes a framework that is coercive rather than voluntary. The Coalition's affidavits provide evidence that its members are already incurring planning expenses as a result of the listing, illustrating the necessary causal link. 37 Although there are already other listed species within the waterways in which the Coalition's members operate, the entire framework of the ESA, including the consultation provisions, requires species-specific conservation. See, e.g., 16 U.S.C. § 1536(A)(2) ([e]ach Federal agency shall... insure that any action ... is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered or threatened species (emphasis added)). To hold that there is no causation because of the presence of other species would be to ignore this central theme of the ESA. Moreover, the four affidavits point specifically to the Alabama sturgeon as the cause of the economic injuries; drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party, as is required at the summary judgment stage, we conclude that the Coalition has provided sufficient evidence of traceability.
38 Similarly, the Coalition has submitted sufficient evidence showing redressability. As an initial matter, we note that [w]hile redressability must not be speculative, it need only be `likely,' not certain. Tenn. Valley Auth. v. E.P.A., 278 F.3d at 1207. The Coalition seeks a declaration that the Government violated the ESA and APA, which would invalidate the listing. Even though other listed species could trigger the consultation requirement and other statutes could authorize the Government to intervene in permitting matters, these arguments are insufficient to justify a conclusion that this Court could not redress the injury. Id. The traceability of the injury is focused on the marginal impact of the unique species Scaphirhynchus suttkusi; so too is the injury redressable because delisting the sturgeon will eliminate the additional considerations of which the Coalition complains. Accordingly, we hold that the Coalition does not lack standing in this case.