Opinion ID: 6984428
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Permission Theory

Text: Riley first argues that relators meet standing requirements because Congress has said that they do. In other words, Riley claims that the FCA is a statutory grant of standing to qui tam relators. A few decisions, including this Court’s decision in Weinberger, have taken this “statutory permission” approach. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Woodard v. Country View Care Ctr., Inc., 797 F.2d 888, 893 (10th Cir.1986) (“The statute of course eliminated any standing problem”); Weinberger, 557 F.2d at 460 (reasoning that “the statute clearly accords [the relator] standing to bring the action”). But the statutory permission approach fails because Congress is itself constrained by the Constitution. The Constitution requires a personalized injury, and Congress cannot, by legislation, waive that requirement. See Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 2318 n. 3, 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997) (“It is settled that Congress cannot erase Article Ill’s standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing.”). Those courts that have adopted the statutory permission approach likely viewed the injury element as a prudential standing requirement that Congress could waive. Indeed, earlier Supreme Court opinions referred to waiveable prudential standing requirements. See, e.g., Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2206 & n. 12, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). But the Court has now stated, without equivocation, that a particularized and personal injury is a constitutional— not a prudential — standing requirement, which cannot be waived by legislation. See Lujan, 112 S.Ct. at 2136. The courts that have adopted the statutory permission approach may also have confused Congress’s power to create rights with the power to create standing. Congress can, of course, enact statutes creating new substantive legal rights, the invasion of which can give rise to the kind of particularized injury necessary to create standing. See Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 93 S.Ct. 1146, 1148 n. 3, 35 L.Ed.2d 536 (1973). In no event, however, “may Congress abrogate the article III minima: A plaintiff must always have suffered ‘a distinct and palpable injury to himself ... that is likely to be redressed if the requested relief is granted.” Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979). In light of more recent Supreme Court authority, such as Steel Co. and Lujan, those cases relying upon a statutory permission theory and the statutory permission theory itself, must fail.