Opinion ID: 616285
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: API Havens Standing

Text: An organization may assert standing on its own behalf or on behalf of its members. Equal Rights Ctr. v. Post Props., Inc., 633 F.3d 1136, 1138 (D.C.Cir. 2011). Here, API claims standing only on its own behalf, in which case it must make the same showing required of individuals: an actual or threatened injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by a favorable court decision. Spann v. Colonial Vill., Inc., 899 F.2d 24, 27 (D.C.Cir.1990). As the Supreme Court held in Sierra Club, an organization's abstract interest in a problem is insufficient to establish standing, no matter how longstanding the interest and no matter how qualified the organization is in evaluating the problem. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 739, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). This is because an organization's abstract concern with a subject that could be affected by an adjudication does not substitute for the concrete injury required by Art. III. Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976). Accordingly, organizations who seek to do no more than vindicate their own value preferences through the judicial process generally cannot establish standing. Sierra Club, 405 U.S. at 740, 92 S.Ct. 1361; see also Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982). In Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman , however, the Supreme Court held that an organization may establish Article III standing if it can show that the defendant's actions cause a concrete and demonstrable injury to the organization's activities that is more than simply a setback to the organization's abstract social interests. 455 U.S. at 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114. In Havens, the organizational plaintiff, a nonprofit seeking to promote equal opportunity in housing, alleged that Havens Realty Corporation engaged in `racial steering' in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Id. at 366, 102 S.Ct. 1114. The organization argued that it had standing to sue in its own right because Havens's racial steering practices frustrated its efforts `to assist equal access to housing through counseling and other referral services' and caused the organization to devote resources to identifying and counteracting the unlawful practices. Id. at 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114 (quoting complaint). Taking these allegations as true, the Supreme Court held that if the organization could show that the steering practices perceptibly impaired [its] ability to provide counseling and referral services for low- and moderate-income homeseekers, such impairment would constitute an injury in fact sufficient to support standing. Id. Because [s]uch concrete and demonstrable injury to the organization's activitieswith the consequent drain on the organization's resourcesconstitutes far more than simply a setback to the organization's abstract social interests, id., the Court distinguished the case from Sierra Club, where the organizational plaintiff had alleged nothing more than a mere interest in a problem, Sierra Club, 405 U.S. at 739, 92 S.Ct. 1361 (internal quotation marks omitted). For our part, we ha[ve] applied Havens Realty to justify organizational standing in a wide range of circumstances. Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. Eschenbach, 469 F.3d 129, 133 (D.C.Cir. 2006). Our case law, however, establishes two important limitations on the scope of standing under Havens. See id. First, an organization seeking to establish Havens standing must show a direct conflict between the defendant's conduct and the organization's mission. Nat'l Treasury Emps. Union v. United States, 101 F.3d 1423, 1430 (D.C.Cir.1996). If the challenged conduct affects an organization's activities, but is neutral with respect to its substantive mission, we have found it entirely speculative whether the challenged practice will actually impair the organization's activities. Id. Second, an organization may not manufacture the injury necessary to maintain a suit from its expenditure of resources on that very suit. Spann, 899 F.2d at 27. Under our case law, an organization's diversion of resources to litigation or to investigation in anticipation of litigation is considered a self-inflicted budgetary choice that cannot qualify as an injury in fact for purposes of standing. Equal Rights Ctr., 633 F.3d at 1139-40. As explained in Equal Rights Center, we begin an inquiry into Havens standing by asking whether the defendant's allegedly unlawful activities injured the plaintiff's interest in promoting its mission. Id. at 1140. If the answer is yes, we then ask whether the plaintiff used its resources to counteract that injury. See id. (Instead of focusing entirely on the voluntariness of the ERC's diversion of resources, therefore, the district court should have asked, first, whether Post's alleged discriminatory conduct injured the ERC's interest in promoting fair housing and, second, whether the ERC used its resources to counteract that harm.). Claiming Havens standing, API contends that Feld's unlawful conduct undermines its advocacy and public education effortsthe entire point of which is to put an end to the injury [bullhooks and chains] inflict on the elephantsby contributing to the public misimpression, particularly in young children, that bullhooks and chains are lawful and humane practices. Appellants' Br. 27. According to API, it must spend resources on public education, and in gathering and disseminating information about Feld's practices, in order to counter the misimpression resulting from [Feld's] mistreatment of the elephants. Id. at 28. Citing trial testimony of its Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Nicole Paquette, API claims that it spends, independent of the instant litigation, approximately $98,000 per year on circus animal advocacy. API's circus animal advocacy activities include public education through fliers, public-service announcements, and billboards; education and outreach to its members through quarterly letters, action alerts, and articles in its magazine; drafting legislation and lobbying for measures prohibiting the mistreatment of animals in circuses; and monitoring regulatory processes for information and opportunities to comment on issues relating to circus animals. Paquette testified that most of API's circus animal advocacy efforts are focused on Feld's practices and that it would no longer need to spend the bulk of these resources if Feld no longer had elephants. Trial Tr. at 38 (Feb. 19, 2009 PM). Feld urges us to reject API's position, arguing that injury to an organization's advocacy, as opposed to its provision of concrete services or programs, is insufficient to support Havens standing. Relying heavily on our decision in Center for Law & Education v. Department of Education, 396 F.3d 1152 (D.C.Cir.2005), Feld argues that `to hold that a lobbyist/advocacy group had standing ... with no injury other than injury to its advocacy would eviscerate standing doctrine's actual injury requirement,' Appellee's Br. 16 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Ctr. for Law & Educ., 396 F.3d at 1162 n. 4), and contends that API lacks standing because `the only service' alleged to be impaired by Feld's practices is `pure issue-advocacy,' Appellee's Br. 21 (quoting Ctr. for Law & Educ., 396 F.3d at 1162). Feld thus draws a sharp distinction between advocacy and other activities, arguing that this case falls on the wrong side of the line. We are unpersuaded that Center for Law & Education so easily ends the inquiry. Although that opinion does contain broad language, it relies on our decision in National Treasury Employees Union v. United States, which held only that an effect on an organization's lobbying efforts, absent direct conflict with the organization's mission, was insufficient to establish standing. 101 F.3d at 1430. Much like the plaintiff in National Treasury Employees Union, the plaintiffs in Center for Law & Education never challenge[d] the substance of the federal regulations at issue, 396 F.3d at 1155, arguing instead that the regulations injured them by forc[ing] them to change their lobbying strategies to a more expensive, state-by-state approach, id. at 1161. In other words, in Center for Law & Education, as in National Treasury Employees Union on which it relies, standing failed for lack of a conflict between the challenged conduct and the plaintiffs' stated mission. Center for Law & Education says nothing about the situation we face here, where the defendant's conduct is both clearly at loggerheads with the organization's mission, Nat'l Treasury Employees Union, 101 F.3d at 1429 (quotation omitted), and allegedly injures the organization's advocacy activities. Moreover, many of our cases finding Havens standing involved activities that could just as easily be characterized as advocacyand, indeed, sometimes are. In Equal Rights Center, for instance, we spoke of an injury to the organizational plaintiff's interest in promoting fair housing. 633 F.3d at 1140. And in Abigail Alliance, although recognizing a distinction between organizations that allege that their activities have been impeded from those that merely allege that their mission has been compromised, we found that the Alliance had met this threshold by alleging that it actively engages in counseling, referral, advocacy, and educational services. 469 F.3d at 133 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, API's claims closely mirror those we found sufficient to support standing in Spann. There, we concluded that a fair housing organization had standing to sue a condominium owner over discriminatory advertisements, reasoning that the organization might have to expend additional resources on public education to rebut any public impression the advertisements might generate that racial discrimination in housing is permissible. Spann, 899 F.2d at 29. Here, similarly, API claims that it must expend additional resources on public education to rebut the misimpression, allegedly caused by Feld's practices, that the use of bullhooks and chains is permissible. Ultimately, whether injury to an organization's advocacy supports Havens standing remains an open question that we have no need to resolve here. For even assuming API can establish injury in fact, its claim to Havens standing falters on causation grounds. Central to API's standing is its allegation that Feld's unlawful practices injure its advocacy and public education efforts because use of bullhooks and chains by the well-known circus creates a public impression, particularly among children, that bullhooks and chains are not harmful to the elephants. This impression, in turn, makes it more difficultand therefore more expensivefor API to educate the public about the harm inflicted by chains and bullhooks. At oral argument, API maintained that we can draw a logical inference that Feld's use of bullhooks and chains creates a public impression that those practices are humane and lawful. Oral Arg. Tr. at 6:20-23. But at this stage of the proceedings, logic is insufficient to establish standing. As the party invoking federal jurisdiction, API bears the burden of establishing each element of standing with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130; see also Equal Rights Ctr., 633 F.3d at 1141 n. 3 (noting that although the burden imposed on a plaintiff at the pleading stage is not onerous, that burden increases ... as the case proceeds). Having gone to trial, API bore the burden of proving causation, not through logic, but through specific facts supported adequately by testimony or other evidence. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130. To be sure, record evidence establishes not only that API expends resources advocating for the better treatment of elephants, but also that at least some of Feld's advertising budget is used to portray its Asian elephants as healthy and content. But nothing in the record supports the key link in API's standing argument, namely, that Feld's use of bullhooks and chains fosters a public impression that these practices are harmless. Although Paquette testified extensively about API's advocacy and expenditures, she never mentioned API's efforts to counteract that public impression. And although API put on numerous experts, it failed to provide any expert testimony regarding the effect of Feld's use of bullhooks and chains upon the public's impression of those practices. Indeed, the only evidence arguably on point comes from Tom Rider, who testified that Feld takes steps to conceal the chains and bullhooks from public view. Specifically, he testified that when Feld exhibits the elephants during an open house, its employees pile all the hay on top of the chains so that the public cannot see them, Trial Tr. at 38 (Feb. 12, 2009 AM), and that when its handlers use bullhooks in circus performances, they wrap black tape around the hook at the top so that members of the audience are unable to see it. Id. at 46. Contrary to API's claim that Feld's treatment of elephants gives the public the impression that the use of bullhooks and chains is humane, Rider's testimony suggests that the public may in fact have little awareness of these two techniques. True, as counsel pointed out at oral argument, even a limited awareness could lead the public to think that the elephants are happy and content despite the use of bullhooks and chains, but the pointand the one that is fatal to API's standingis that it has failed to demonstrate that Feld's treatment of elephants contribut[es] to the public misimpression, particularly in young children, that bullhooks and chains are lawful and humane practices. Appellants' Br. 27.