Court Opinion

ID: 9484005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:37:40.066142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:57.558828
License: Public Domain

WIENER, Circuit Judge,
with whom POLITZ, Chief Judge, joins, dissenting.
I concur in Judge Goldberg’s eloquent and forceful dissent. I write separately only to emphasize my disagreement with the majority’s basic assumptions that form the foundation of its holding. The majority tenaciously clings to two assumptions: 1) “The injury of unequal treatment alleged by the appellants is shared in substantially equal measure by a ‘disfavored class’ that includes all taxpayers who did not receive transitional relief”;1 and 2) the appellants are not litigating their own tax liability, but are challenging the liability of those taxpayers who received a tax break.2 As I can discern no basis for these assumptions other than the majority’s bald proclamations that they are so, I simply cannot agree with the conclusion that the majority then proceeds to build on such illusory underpinnings, i.e., that appellants’ claim represents a “generalized grievance.”
I first part company with my colleagues of the majority when they declare that the injury of unequal treatment is shared equally by all taxpayers who did not receive the tax exemption. This is just not so. The majority deliberately ignores one important and unavoidable fact: The appellants are “similarly situated” to those taxpayers who received a tax benefit, but the vast majority of taxpayers “out there” are not. Simple logic dictates that when two disfavored persons are treated differently from a favored third person but only one of the disfavored persons is similarly situated to the favored third, the injury of unequal treatment is significantly greater for the one who is similarly situated to the favored third person than it is for the one who is not. This is the very essence of an equal protection claim.
Moreover, the majority opinion gives undeservedly short shrift to the equal protection aspect of this case when it concludes that the appellants “have failed to demonstrate that the relief they seek would personally benefit them in a tangible way.”3 This confirms to me that the majority is repulsed — for reasons I cannot divine — by the remedy sought by appellants, i.e., deprivation of the tax breaks afforded the favored few by the private relief which the Act euphemistically labeled “transitional rules.” And, the majority seizes this facet of appellants’ approach to jump all the way to their expressed view that appellants are not litigating their own tax liabilities, but instead are litigating the tax liabilities of the taxpayers who have received the tax benefits.
But these views ignore two well-established rules, both of which are apparent in Mathews v. Heckler.4 First, in an equal protection case, elimination of the unequal treatment itself is a palpable benefit recognized by the Supreme Court. Irrespective of the majority opinion’s Orwellian repetition of the deliberate denial of that truism in an effort to erase it, the fact remains that appellants absolutely would realize a direct benefit if the favored class of similarly situated taxpayers were to be *1188deprived of its tax breaks, i.e., the well recognized benefit of seeing equal treatment restored. The majority’s dogged focus on appellants’ lack of achieving personal tax benefits is a red herring, diverting attention from the reality that achieving tax benefits is not the only viable remedy in a tax equal protection case. Correctly focused, the emphasis here must be on constitutional equality, not mere technical tax equality among similarly situated parties who just happen to be taxpayers.
Second, Mathews unmistakably establishes that equality of treatment may be achieved either by extending the benefit to the disfavored class or by withdrawing the benefit from the favored class. When, as here, members of the appellants’ disfavored class seek the latter remedy, they will, if successful, affect the rights of others. Consequently, when here the majority opinion denies standing to appellants for that reason, the practical and legal effect is to eliminate the viability of a negative remedy altogether, and thereby to eviscerate Mathews.
Although it attempts to distinguish Mathews from the instant case, in truth the majority is turning a blind eye to the inherent flaws in its underlying assumptions. The majority summarizes the Court’s holding in Mathews as follows:
[Bjecause Mathews’ injury was redressa-ble by withdrawing benefits from similarly situated nondependent women, the standing requirements to raise the equal protection claim were satisfied.5
Try as I may, I cannot see how that is distinguishably different from stating:
Because [Apache Bend’s] injury is re-dressable by withdrawing the benefits from similarly situated [taxpayers who have received a tax break], the standing requirements to raise the equal protection claim were satisfied.
It seems to me that for the majority here to decree that there is a difference sufficient to deny standing to Apache Bend when the Court found standing in Mathews, amounts to nothing short of judicial fiat. I have no choice but respectfully to dissent.

. Majority Opinion at 1177-78.

. Id. at 1177.

. Id. at 1179.

. 465 U.S. 728, 104 S.Ct. 1387, 79 L.Ed.2d 646 (1984).

. Majority Opinion at 1178 n. 3.