Opinion ID: 330543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Citizen Korioth

Text: 3 The requirement that an individual have standing to litigate in federal courts is in part a derivative of the Constitution's limitation of the federal judicial power to cases and controversies, U.S.Const. art. III, § 2, and in part the result of long favored prudential considerations. 5 Federal courts are not to render advisory opinions, but rather are to decide specific issues for parties with real disputes. 6 Cases are to be decided on the narrowest legal grounds available, 7 and relief is to be tailored carefully to the nature of the dispute before the court. 8 4 Although the Supreme Court has warned that generalizations about the law of standing are of dubious worth, 9 the currency of Baker v. Carr's often quoted formulation of the general question to be considered seems not to have been devalued: 5 Have the appellants alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the Court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions? This is the gist of the question of standing. 6 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, 678. 7 Recent decisions have indicated that in answering this question, a court's focus should be on whether the complaining party has alleged any  injury in fact which distinguishes that party, in relation to the alleged violations, from the undifferentiated mass of the public. 10 The requirement that a complaining party allege a specific injury in fact appears to be necessary so that all of the above discussed policy objectives may be furthered although an irate citizen might vigorously pursue litigation challenging alleged governmental illegalities, a court cannot fashion a specific remedy without some finding of specific harm. The specific, distinct injury may be small, 11 but some such injury must be alleged for the litigant to have standing. 8 Prior to 1974, there were some indications of the development of a doctrine whereby requirements for citizen standing in public actions would be quite minimal. 12 Citizens able to show no specialized injury were held to have standing to bring a constitutional challenge against Congressmen's membership in the Armed Forces Reserves in Reservists Committee to Stop the War v. Laird, D.D.C.1971, 323 F.Supp. 833, Aff'd without opinion, 162 U.S.App. D.C. 19, 495 F.2d 1074 (No. 71-1535, Oct. 31, 1972). 13 The Supreme Court, however, reversed, emphasizing the requirement that plaintiffs must show a concrete injury which differentiates their interest in the case from that of all other citizens. Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 1974, 418 U.S. 208, 94 S.Ct. 2925, 41 L.Ed.2d 706. 14 Thus, the thin ice which may have supported generalized citizen standing to pursue public actions before Schlesinger seems to have melted with that case. 15 9 It is tautologically clear that a citizen who asserts only his citizen status as a basis for standing to pursue constitutional or statutory claims has not specified any injury which sets him apart from the mass of citizens who desire that the state adhere to the legal amenities of governance. If Korioth has standing, then, it must be based either on his status as a taxpayer or that as a legislator.