Opinion ID: 512872
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Threat of Future Injury

Text: 12 In addition, Friends asserts that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously in refusing to reconsider its order of July 24, 1985, which rejected Friends' March 2, 1984 application and imposed a one-year ban on further filings. We cannot say that the dispute concerning this order is moot, since there exists at least the possibility that this order will affect the petitioner's interests at some point in the future. FERC argues that Friends can accomplish now the same thing as it could accomplish if it succeeded in overturning the Commission's orders under review here: the unfettered opportunity to apply for a license or exemption. Respondent's Brief at 9. This is not entirely accurate. FERC's original basis for rejecting Friends' application and imposing the one-year ban on any subsequent attempts was that Friends had used the Village as a proxy in order to obtain an advantageous first-filed position. It seems somewhat contradictory then for the agency to contend at this juncture that the first-filed position would not have secured any advantage to Friends after all. We must acknowledge at least the possibility that Friends' chances of obtaining a license or exemption would be improved if the agency were compelled to treat its application as having been filed on March 2, 1984, rather than at some time in 1988. The question is whether a diminished chance of success in the application process, caused by the Commission's refusal to rescind its earlier orders, is an injury sufficiently concrete to warrant the invocation of judicial power. 13 The parties, we note, have provided little elucidation regarding the likelihood that a decision in petitioner's favor would affect the outcome of any future application process. We do not know whether any competing entity actually has applied for a permit (in which case Friends would have lost its opportunity to be the first-filed applicant). 8 At oral argument petitioner's counsel suggested that municipalities in the region might file competing applications, but counsel could offer no estimate of the likelihood that such competitors would emerge. If Friends still has the opportunity to file first, and if no municipality files a competing application, then the Commission's rejection of its earlier application may impose no burden on its current chances of obtaining a permit. If competitors have already filed, however, then it makes a great difference whether Friends' March 2, 1984 application is accepted. Even as the first-filed applicant, Friends might suffer injury from the denial of municipal preference if a municipality submits a competing application. 9 Clearly there exists a possibility that Friends will be injured by the Commission's orders, but we have little sense of how great that possibility is. 14 In some situations, a diminished chance of success in the administrative process plainly constitutes a judicially cognizable injury. If an agency considers improper factors in reaching a decision, a challenger need not show with certainty that the outcome would have been different if the improper considerations had been eliminated. 10 Similarly, an appellant alleging trial court error is not required to prove that he would have prevailed below if the errors had not been present. A challenger must demonstrate that the errors alleged were not harmless, 11 but such a showing does not require proof that the errors necessarily changed the result of the proceedings below. The typical appellate reversal, in short, rests upon a judgment that the outcome of an earlier proceeding might have been different had the law been properly applied; or, in other words, that legal error materially diminished one party's chances of success. If this be speculative, then speculation lies at the core of the appellate process. 15 Courts are less willing, however, to speculate as to the likely outcome of future events. This is not because such predictions are inherently less accurate than are assessments of how past events would have turned out if certain factors had been different. Rather, it is because a court asked to make predictive judgments often has the option of waiting to see what does in fact transpire before issuing a legal ruling. We do not suggest that the prospect of future injury can never be a sufficient basis for invoking the judicial power. Standing to seek review may be premised on  'actual or threatened injury,'  Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (quoting Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979)). Particularly where the likelihood of future harm is demonstrably high, it is often appropriate for courts to intervene before the feared event occurs. See Wilderness Society v. Griles, 824 F.2d 4, 10-12 (D.C.Cir.1987). Judicial review should not, however, be premised on the bare possibility that agency action may ultimately lead to cognizable injury.