Opinion ID: 697621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: GAP's Standing and Continuing Injury

Text: 28 Before addressing GAP's request for injunctive relief on the merits, we must first resolve a jurisdictional issue: whether the organization has standing to pursue its claims in federal court at all. Humane Soc'y v. Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93, 96 (D.C.Cir.1995). GAP offers two theories. It argues that the RTC's alleged violations of the RTC Whistleblower Act interfere with the organization's ability to gather and disseminate information about the RTC and frustrate its concrete, programmatic activities. In addition, it maintains that the agency's interception of and interference with confidential communications from sources within the RTC violates its First Amendment right to receive the communications of willing speakers. We hold that GAP lacks standing entirely under the RTC Whistleblower Act; furthermore, while we hold that GAP has standing to bring suit under the First Amendment, we find that it has not sufficiently alleged a continuing injury that would justify granting its motion for preliminary relief. 29 A litigant challenging government action under a federal statute must satisfy not only the constitutional requirements of standing but also its prudential prerequisites; the litigant must show that it falls within the statute's zone of interests by demonstrating either a congressional intent to protect or regulate the interest asserted, or some other indication that the litigant is a suitable party to pursue that interest in court. Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Espy, 23 F.3d 496, 502 (D.C.Cir.1994). GAP's doubtless sincere interest in promoting the underlying purposes of the RTC Whistleblower Act is not enough to support standing to sue under that statute; otherwise, any party that bothered to sue would ipso facto locate itself within the relevant zone of interests. See Haitian Refugee Ctr. v. Gracey, 809 F.2d 794, 813 (D.C.Cir.1987). In identifying the Act's intended zone of interests, we look to the means selected by Congress to fulfill its purposes. Animal Legal Defense Fund, 23 F.3d at 503. And Congress has focused solely on the actual employees of the RTC and of its contractors: only to them does the Act afford explicit protection and remedies. 12 U.S.C. Sec. 1441a(q)(1). Furthermore, GAP cannot even claim to be an intended recipient of protected disclosures under the Act, which protects disclosures only to a small number of named entities--the [Resolution Trust] Corporation, the Thrift Depositor Oversight Board, the Attorney General, or any appropriateFederal banking agency. Id. Given Congress's explicit designation of a class of direct beneficiaries and its clear statement of remedies, which are seemingly adequate to elicit vigorous, aggressive enforcement, we can see no ground for inferring any intent to designate other potential recipients, unnamed by the Act and different in character from the named recipients, as supplemental challengers of possibly illegal activity. 30 On the other hand, we agree with GAP that it has a First Amendment interest in receiving information from willing speakers within the RTC sufficient to support its standing to bring a constitutional challenge. [W]here a speaker exists ... the protection afforded [by the First Amendment] is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both. Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 756, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 1823, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976) (collecting cases and holding, on that principle, that consumers of prescription drugs had standing to challenge state law forbidding advertising of prescription drug prices). GAP has met the requirement of pleading the existence of specific willing speakers. See Gregg v. Barrett, 771 F.2d 539, 547-48 (D.C.Cir.1985). Indeed, four of these speakers are the individual plaintiffs whose claims we have already discussed; furthermore, GAP has alleged specific ways, direct and indirect, by which the RTC has intercepted and interfered with the organization's communications with these speakers. Thus GAP has adequately pled facts supporting its standing to bring suit on First Amendment grounds. 31 But to establish the grounds for a preliminary injunction GAP must show more: it must demonstrate a substantial probability of success on the merits and an irreparable injury that the proposed injunction would avert. This inquiry overlaps with the standing issue somewhat; without adequate proof of a threatened injury, plaintiff lacks both standing and an adequate basis in equity for an injunction. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Fair Employment Council v. BMC Marketing Corp., 28 F.3d 1268, 1272-74 (D.C.Cir.1994). Here the district court found that none of the plaintiffs named in this action has been so chilled as to keep his or her story from GAP and that GAP failed to show that other RTC employees have been 'chilled' from providing GAP with information. These findings are not clearly erroneous. Not only does it appear that the four individual plaintiffs have overcome any reluctance to speak that might have been caused by the RTC's behavior, but none--for the reasons stated before--is any longer potentially subject to direct retaliation, harassment or surveillance as an employee. Only Dunn has alleged potentially chilling conduct by the RTC following his termination, but as noted above, the only alleged post-employment retaliation that the district court credited was the single, discrete Coopers & Lybrand episode, which is inadequate to chill Dunn's future communications to GAP. 32 The remaining evidence properly before the court was extremely limited. Following their initial submission of a 63-page motion for relief with hundreds of pages of exhibits, and shortly before the government's response was originally due, the plaintiffs tried to submit an additional nine affidavits from alleged victims of RTC retaliation who were not parties to the suit. The court rejected these last minute affidavits, explaining in its final memorandum that it had done so because defendants lacked an adequate opportunity to respond to those extra-complaint allegations before the hearing on the preliminary injunction motion. Given the district court's repeated attempts to focus the litigation and keep the filings at a manageable level, and in light of District Court Rule 205's exhortation that the original application for a preliminary injunction contain all affidavits on which the plaintiff intends to rely (emphasis added), this was not an abuse of discretion. The only relevant evidence properly filed consists of two statements in an affidavit from a GAP official. The first asserts that two RTC employees came forward and provided GAP with substantial information about agency misconduct but declined to become plaintiffs in the suit out of fear of retaliation. This hardly helps GAP. It suggests that despite the agency's actions, RTC employees remained willing to supply the organization with information, even if they drew the line at joining GAP's suit; GAP has not asserted (nor can we imagine) a First Amendment right to enjoin government conduct that inhibits other persons who might be potential plaintiffs from filing lawsuits. The other statement in the affidavit says that Whistleblower [sic] who possess information crucial to [GAP's media campaign] are unwilling to disclose the information due to a well justified fear of reprisal by the RTC. This is entirely conclusory. Neither statement makes the district court's finding that GAP suffers no First Amendment injury clearly erroneous or casts doubt on its conclusion that preliminary relief was unwarranted. 33