Court Opinion

ID: 9914510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-02 15:11:41.300912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:13:18.123551
License: Public Domain

Vermont Superior Court
                                                                                                          Filed 09/01 23
                                                                                                        Washmgton mt

    VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT                              £3:                           CIVIL DIVISION
    Washington Unit                                                                 Case No. 22-CV-04195
    65 State Street
                                                              f1
    Montpelier VT 05602
    802—828—2091

    wwwvermontjudiciaryorg

                                    Standing Trees Inc. et a1 V. State of Vermont

                                  Ruling on the State’s Motion to Dismiss

          In this case, Plaintiffs Jamison Ervin, Alan Pierce, and Standing Trees Inc., an

environmental advocacy organization to which they belong, have brought several claims

against the State arising out of their interactions With the Department of Forests, Parks,

and Recreation (FPR) and the Department of Fish & Wildlife (F&W) [collectively, the

Departments].1 Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief, including a statewide

ban on all logging of State lands until certain “policies” of the Departments are subjected

to formal rulemaking proceedings under Vermont’s Administrative Procedures Act, 3

V.S.A. §§ 831—848. The State seeks dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and,

in the alternative, failure to state a claim.

          Plaintiffs represent that their several public records requests caused the

Departments to produce three of their “policies” as follows: (1) Long Range Management

Planning (LRMP) Process and Plan Format, of which 4.0 Land Management

Classiﬁcation (updated August 2004) is a part; (2) FPR Policy #21; and (3) Use of State

Land (2008). According to Plaintiffs, these policies address the Departments’

involvement in approving timber harvests on state land and use of state forests and

1
 Plaintiffs have named the respective commissioners as defendants in this case, but they
are so named in ofﬁcial capacity only. Thus, the only true defendant in interest is the
State of Vermont.
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22—CV—O4195 Standing Trees Inc. et a1 v. State of Vermont
parks and, as far as they go, do not expressly require consideration of global warming or

flood resiliency. Although Plaintiffs do not allege that the Departments entirely

disregard those issues when making such decisions, they plainly think that these three

policies should require consideration of those matters expressly.

         In Count 1, Plaintiffs request (a) declarations that the policies violate 10 V.S.A. §

2603 because none has been adopted as a rule and (b) injunctive relief compelling FPR to

begin rulemaking proceedings to so adopt them. Section 2603(c)(1) provides: “The

Commissioner [of FPR], subject to the direction and approval of the Secretary, shall

adopt and publish rules in the name of the Agency for the use of State forests, or park

lands, including reasonable fees or charges for the use of the lands, roads, camping sites,

buildings, and other facilities and for the harvesting of timber or removal of minerals or

other resources from such lands, notwithstanding 32 V.S.A. § 603.”

         In Count 2, Plaintiffs ask the Court to declare a violation of 10 V.S.A. § 578 and

order the Departments to start complying with § 578 by adopting policies, rules, or in any

other way. Section 578(c) provides: “In order to facilitate the State’s compliance with the

goals established in this section, all State agencies shall consider any increase or

decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in their decision-making procedures with respect

to the purchase and use of equipment and goods; the siting, construction, and

maintenance of buildings; the assignment of personnel; and the planning, design, and

operation of programs, services, and infrastructure.” There is no allegation that the

Departments, in fact, do not do this, only that the identified policies do not literally

reflect that they do so.

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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         Count 3 has two parts. First, Plaintiffs ask the Court to compel rulemaking under

3 V.S.A. § 831(c): “An agency shall initiate rulemaking to adopt as a rule an existing

practice or procedure when so requested by 25 or more persons or by the Legislative

Committee on Administrative Rules. An agency shall not be required to initiate

rulemaking with respect to any practice or procedure, except as provided by this

subsection.” Plaintiffs and at least 22 other persons requested that the Departments

initiate rulemaking, and they have not done so.2

         Plaintiffs expect that, if the Departments initiate rulemaking proceedings, the

rules eventually adopted (after public notice and comment and legislative review) may

better reflect their positions as to global warming and flood resiliency and, thus, may

benefit them in relation to the public lands adjacent to their home and where they visit

recreationally. They request that the Court enjoin all timber harvests on public land

statewide until these rulemakings occur. They do not seek an order compelling

rulemaking under 10 V.S.A. § 578(c), which requires “consideration” rather than the

adoption of rules or policies, but one presumes that they believe that if the Departments’

policies more expressly reflect the purport of § 578, those policies may benefit them.

         In the second part of Count 3, Plaintiffs seek an order compelling the Departments

to post the identified policies on their websites pursuant to 3 V.S.A. § 835(a), which

provides:

         Procedures and guidance documents shall be maintained by the agency in
         an official current compilation that includes an index. Each addition,
         change, or deletion to the official compilation shall also be dated, indexed,
         and recorded. The agency shall publish the compilation and index on its

2 The State maintains that the nature of the letter request submitted by Plaintiffs does

not fall within the contemplation of § 831(c). It is unnecessary to address this argument
at this time, and the Court declines to do so.
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         Internet website and make all procedures and guidance documents
         available to the public. On or after January 1, 2024, an agency shall not
         rely on a procedure or guidance document or cite it against any party to a
         proceeding, unless the procedure or guidance document is included in a
         compilation maintained and published in accordance with this subsection.

The publication and deadline component of this provision was adopted in 2018. Plaintiffs

allege that the Departments have not posted the three policies at issue here on their

websites. Obviously, the deadline for posting has not yet come to pass.

         The State seeks dismissal. Its principal argument is that Plaintiffs lack

constitutional standing to bring these claims in court. As standing is a component of the

Court’s subject matter jurisdiction, the Court addresses this argument first. See Ihinger

v. Ihinger, 2003 VT 38, ¶ 5, 175 Vt. 520, 521 (mem.) (“Because standing is a jurisdictional

issue, we must first determine the merits of [this] threshold argument.”). The Court

notes that none of the statutes under which Plaintiffs seek relief provides any private

right of action. Instead, Plaintiffs seek to enforce those laws through Vt. R. Civ. P. 75 by

seeking relief in the nature of the common-law writ of mandamus. Whether a suitable

party could have a cause of action for mandamus under these statutes is less than clear.

Standing, however, is a separate matter that must be satisfied at all events. See 13A

Charles Wright, Arthur Miller & Mary Kane, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 3531 (3d ed.)

[hereinafter “Wright & Miller”] (“The question whether the law recognizes the cause of

action stated by a plaintiff is frequently transformed into inappropriate standing terms.

The Supreme Court has stated succinctly that the cause-of-action question is not a

question of standing.”).

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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         I.       Procedural Standard

         A motion seeking dismissal for lack of standing is considered under Rule 12(b)(1),

which addresses subject matter jurisdiction. See 5B Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc.

Civ. § 1350. As the Vermont Supreme Court has described, when considering a motion to

dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, “‘all uncontroverted factual allegations of

the complaint [are] accepted as true and construed in the light most favorable to the

nonmoving party.’ ‘A court may consider evidence outside the pleadings.’” Mullinnex v.

Menard, 2020 VT 33, ¶ 8, 212 Vt. 432 (citations omitted); see Conley v. Crisafulli, 2010

VT 38, ¶ 3, 188 Vt. 11, 14 (court may accept evidence from outside the record to resolve

dispute as to jurisdiction).

         II.      Standing Generally

         “Standing doctrine is fundamentally rooted in respect for the separation of powers

of the independent branches of government.” Hinesburg Sand & Gravel Co. v. State, 166

Vt. 337, 341 (1997) (noting at 340–41 that “[o]ne of the ‘passive virtues’ of the standing

doctrine is to promote judicial restraint by limiting the occasions for judicial intervention

into the political process”). Standing “confin[es] the judiciary to the adjudication of

actual disputes and prevent[s] the judiciary from presiding over broad-based policy

questions that are properly resolved in the legislative arena.” Parker v. Town of Milton,

169 Vt. 74, 77 (1998).

         The contemporary federal doctrine was described in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,

504 U.S. 555 (1992), as follows:

         [T]he irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three
         elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an “injury in fact”—an
         invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and
         particularized and (b) “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         ‘hypothetical.’” Second, there must be a causal connection between the
         injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be “fairly . . .
         trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . th[e] result
         [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Third,
         it must be “likely,” as opposed to merely “speculative,” that the injury will
         be “redressed by a favorable decision.”

Id. at 560–61 (citations omitted). These are the constitutional (as opposed to prudential)

limits on federal courts’ jurisdiction.

         Among other interests served, the requirement that the plaintiff be someone who

has suffered an actual injury “ensure[s] that the plaintiff has a sufficient personal stake

in the outcome of the controversy to ensure vigorous presentation of the issues.” Apter v.

Richardson, 510 F.2d 351, 353 (7th Cir. 1975); see 13A Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. &

Proc. Juris. § 3531(standing doctrine requires a “‘personal stake’ that will make the

plaintiff an effective litigant”).

         The federal standing requirements have been adopted in Vermont. Parker, 169 Vt.

at 77–78 (explaining that in Hinesburg Sand & Gravel, the Vermont Supreme Court

adopted the standing test articulated in Lujan). Vermont courts are not, however,

inflexibly bound by federal standing precedents insofar as standing in our courts

presents a legal question under the Vermont, rather than United States, constitution.3

See Ferry v. City of Montpelier, 2023 VT 4, ¶ 15 (2023). “A plaintiff must allege facts

sufficient to establish his or her standing ‘[o]n the face of the complaint.’” Paige v. State,

2018 VT 136, ¶ 10, 209 Vt. 379, 384 (citation omitted).

3 The parties surely disagree about the implications of federal standing case law in this

case, but both apply it and neither attempts to argue that the Court should disregard it
and strike out in some new state-specific direction. The Court sees no manifest reason to
depart from the federal cases here and, accordingly, applies that law for Vermont
constitutional purposes.
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         III.     Standing as to Count 1, 10 V.S.A. § 2603

         The parties disagree as to whether 2603(c)(1), which speaks to FPR rulemaking,

required FPR to adopt the policies at issue in this case as rules. Plaintiffs take the

position that it did. To properly raise that issue here, they first must allege facts

showing that they have standing. The State argues that they lack a cognizable injury.

Plaintiffs argue that they are asserting a “procedural violation” (lack of required

rulemaking) and that, under a line of U.S. Supreme Court cases, standing requirements

are relaxed in the context of procedural violations. Under the relaxed standard, they

argue, they have standing. The State disputes that this is a procedural violation case.

         In the Court’s view, it is unnecessary to resolve that contest. The procedural

violation cases may relax redressability and immediacy requirements, but they do not

relax the bedrock injury requirement. Plaintiffs may not rely upon such case law in an

attempt to bypass their obligation to allege facts showing a constitutional injury. A

review of the complaint shows that they have failed to allege an injury that is (a)

concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.

         In the complaint, Plaintiffs focus on a feared timber harvest in the Camel’s Hump

area that could affect their interests if it materializes. Potentially relevant allegations

include the following:

         24. Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce reside on Mountainview Road in Duxbury,
         Vermont.

         25. Their property adjoins, is downhill and downstream of, and enjoys
         views of Camel’s Hump State Park.

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         26. Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce frequently walk, hike and study the forests
         that surround their home, including the forests in nearby State Forests,
         Parks and Wildlife Management Areas.

         27. Their walking in, hiking in and study of the forests in nearby State
         Forests, Parks and Wildlife Management Areas is far more frequent, far
         more informed by years of study of forests, and far more important to the
         quality of their daily lives than use of State Forests, Parks or Wildlife
         Management Areas is for the vast majority of Vermont residents.

         28. Every spring for the past 15 years, Dr. Pierce has visited a high rich
         mesic cove in the nearby State Forests and Parks. The cove is filled with
         mature maple and ash trees and carpeted with spring ephemeral flowers.
         This cove has a beautiful view to the north and reliably produces morel
         mushrooms every year, which Dr. Pierce harvests for personal consumption.
         The cove may be harvested according to the Defendants’ current timber
         harvest schedule. Dr. Pierce will experience an acute sense of loss if this
         area is logged because it will not recover in his lifetime.

                                                        .     .     .

         33. Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce will suffer irreparable harm from the
         harvesting of the forests enjoyed by Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce, including but
         not limited to forests with mature trees, and from the loss of habitat for
         endangered and threatened species and species specific to interior, mature
         forests, with the resulting losses of these species.

                                                            . . .

         37. The Defendants’ current plans are to authorize logging on public lands
         uphill and upstream of the lands owned by Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce and
         uphill and upstream of the roads and bridges they use. Some of these lands
         fall within the categories of the lands upon which Enhancing Flood
         Resiliency of Vermont State Lands recommended OCP’s be adopted. The
         Defendants do not plan to adopt OCP’s that the report recommended for
         some of these lands.

         38. Harvesting of trees, and construction of logging roads and log landings,
         in the areas planned by the Defendants will cause Dr. Ervin and Dr. Pierce
         to suffer irreparable harm because the flooding of streams and rivers will
         expose them to greater risk of personal injury and property damage.

                                                        .     .     .

         40. The Defendants plan future harvesting of trees in areas that log-
         carrying trucks will access by means of the same roads and bridges that Dr.
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         Ervin and Dr. Pierce rely upon for access to their home, essential services,
         and to lands they walk, hike and study.

                                                        .   .   .

         46. Defendants manage State Forests, Parks and Wildlife Management
         Areas based upon unit management plans.

         47. Unit management plans do not constitute final decisions to harvest
         timber in a particular State Forest, Park or Wildlife Management Area.

         48. Management plans schedule timber harvests five, ten or fifteen years
         into the future.

         49. Prior to authorizing advertising for bids to harvest timber in any State
         Forest, Park or Wildlife Management Area, Defendants make a final
         decision about each proposed harvest. These decisions consider information
         obtained after completion of the management plan, such as recent
         information on forest health and endangered species habitat.

                                                        .   .   .

         58. On November 24, 2021, the Secretary of the Agency of Natural
         Resources approved of the final version of the Camel’s Hump Unit
         Management Plan.

         59. This management plan contemplates timber harvests at 34 different
         sites.

         60. The management plan states that before any of the 34 timber harvests
         will be authorized, Defendants will engage in a “robust process” of
         evaluation, including consideration of data pertaining to forest health,
         species composition, soil characteristics, wildlife habitat and the presence of
         rare, threatened and endangered species.

         61. The 34 harvests contemplated in that plan have “target” dates for each
         harvest that start in 2022 and end in 2036.

                                                        .   .   .

         87. Defendants also stated that they would not refrain from authorizing
         timber harvests listed in the Camel’s Hump Unit Management Plan.

                                                        .   .   .

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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         97. Commissioner Snyder has acted in an arbitrary and capricious and
         unlawful manner by stating that he will, in the future, authorize actual
         timber harvesting in the Camel’s Hump Management Unit based on written
         procedures none of which was adopted and published as a rule.

                                                        .   .   .

         107. Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm when timber harvesting occurs
         on the lands of Vermont State Forests and Parks Forests and Wildlife
         Management Areas that are used and relied upon by Plaintiffs without
         having been evaluated in a manner that included consideration of
         greenhouse gas emissions.

         The allegations of the complaint are plain: in the future, the Departments, after a

“robust” review process, could approve a harvest in the Camel’s Hump area. Whether

any such harvest may be approved, and whether the robust review process would lack

the considerations about which Plaintiffs are concerned, are left entirely to speculation.

         Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488 (2009), puts the injury defect in

this case in stark relief. In that case, certain environmental organizations collectively

known as Earth Island, wished to participate in notice and comment procedures for

projects that the United States Forest Service had deemed exempt from such procedures.

At the time Earth Island filed suit, one project, “Burnt Ridge,” threatened an injury for

standing purposes. The controversy as to Burnt Ridge then settled. Earth Island

nevertheless sought to persist with the lawsuit as to other projects for which they could

not identify any concrete injury. As the Summers Court explained, for lack of that harm,

they no longer had standing.

         Summers’ discussion of general standing principles as applied in a somewhat

similar setting to the instant action makes its rationale worth quoting at length.

                 In limiting the judicial power to “Cases” and “Controversies,” Article
         III of the Constitution restricts it to the traditional role of Anglo–American
         courts, which is to redress or prevent actual or imminently threatened
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         injury to persons caused by private or official violation of law. Except when
         necessary in the execution of that function, courts have no charter to review
         and revise legislative and executive action. This limitation “is founded in
         concern about the proper—and properly limited—role of the courts in a
         democratic society.”

                The doctrine of standing is one of several doctrines that reflect this
         fundamental limitation. It requires federal courts to satisfy themselves that
         “the plaintiff has ‘alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the
         controversy’ as to warrant his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction.” He
         bears the burden of showing that he has standing for each type of relief
         sought. To seek injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show that he is under
         threat of suffering “injury in fact” that is concrete and particularized; the
         threat must be actual and imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; it must
         be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and it must be
         likely that a favorable judicial decision will prevent or redress the injury.
         This requirement assures that “there is a real need to exercise the power of
         judicial review in order to protect the interests of the complaining party.”
         Where that need does not exist, allowing courts to oversee legislative or
         executive action “would significantly alter the allocation of power . . . away
         from a democratic form of government.”

                The regulations under challenge here neither require nor forbid any
         action on the part of respondents. The standards and procedures that they
         prescribe for Forest Service appeals govern only the conduct of Forest
         Service officials engaged in project planning. “[W]hen the plaintiff is not
         himself the object of the government action or inaction he challenges,
         standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily ‘substantially more difficult’ to
         establish.” Here, respondents can demonstrate standing only if application
         of the regulations by the Government will affect them in the manner
         described above.

                It is common ground that the respondent organizations can assert the
         standing of their members. To establish the concrete and particularized
         injury that standing requires, respondents point to their members’
         recreational interests in the national forests. While generalized harm to the
         forest or the environment will not alone support standing, if that harm in
         fact affects the recreational or even the mere esthetic interests of the
         plaintiff, that will suffice.

                Affidavits submitted to the District Court alleged that organization
         member Ara Marderosian had repeatedly visited the Burnt Ridge site, that
         he had imminent plans to do so again, and that his interests in viewing the
         flora and fauna of the area would be harmed if the Burnt Ridge Project went
         forward without incorporation of the ideas he would have suggested if the
         Forest Service had provided him an opportunity to comment. The
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         Government concedes this was sufficient to establish Article III standing
         with respect to Burnt Ridge. Marderosian’s threatened injury with regard
         to that project was originally one of the bases for the present suit. After the
         District Court had issued a preliminary injunction, however, the parties
         settled their differences on that score. Marderosian’s injury in fact with
         regard to that project has been remedied, and it is, as the District Court
         pronounced, “not at issue in this case.” We know of no precedent for the
         proposition that when a plaintiff has sued to challenge the lawfulness of
         certain action or threatened action but has settled that suit, he retains
         standing to challenge the basis for that action (here, the regulation in the
         abstract), apart from any concrete application that threatens imminent
         harm to his interests. Such a holding would fly in the face of Article III’s
         injury-in-fact requirement.

                Respondents have identified no other application of the invalidated
         regulations that threatens imminent and concrete harm to the interests of
         their members. The only other affidavit relied on was that of Jim Bensman.
         He asserted, first, that he had suffered injury in the past from development
         on Forest Service land. That does not suffice for several reasons: because it
         was not tied to application of the challenged regulations, because it does not
         identify any particular site, and because it relates to past injury rather than
         imminent future injury that is sought to be enjoined.

                                                        .   .   .

                Respondents argue that they have standing to bring their challenge
         because they have suffered procedural injury, namely, that they have been
         denied the ability to file comments on some Forest Service actions and will
         continue to be so denied. But deprivation of a procedural right without
         some concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation—a procedural
         right in vacuo—is insufficient to create Article III standing. Only a “person
         who has been accorded a procedural right to protect his concrete interests
         can assert that right without meeting all the normal standards for
         redressability and immediacy.” Respondents alleged such injury in their
         challenge to the Burnt Ridge Project, claiming that but for the allegedly
         unlawful abridged procedures they would have been able to oppose the
         project that threatened to impinge on their concrete plans to observe nature
         in that specific area. But Burnt Ridge is now off the table.

               It makes no difference that the procedural right has been accorded by
         Congress. That can loosen the strictures of the redressability prong of our
         standing inquiry—so that standing existed with regard to the Burnt Ridge
         Project, for example, despite the possibility that Earth Island’s allegedly
         guaranteed right to comment would not be successful in persuading the
         Forest Service to avoid impairment of Earth Island’s concrete interests.

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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         Unlike redressability, however, the requirement of injury in fact is a hard
         floor of Article III jurisdiction that cannot be removed by statute.

               “[I]t would exceed [Article III’s] limitations if, at the behest of Congress
               and in the absence of any showing of concrete injury, we were to
               entertain citizen suits to vindicate the public’s nonconcrete interest in
               the proper administration of the laws. . . [T]he party bringing suit must
               show that the action injures him in a concrete and personal way.”

Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488, 492–97 (2009) (citations omitted).

         Plaintiffs in this case have alleged, at best, only a procedural right in vacuo: that if

some future project is approved, then it might have some effect on their interests. There

is no project pending in Vermont akin to the abandoned Burnt Ridge project discussed in

Summers that might potentially be a basis to claim an imminent and concrete harm. In

other words, like the plaintiffs in Summers, they only speculate about some possible,

future injury. As the High Court says, however, even in the procedural violation context,

“the requirement of injury in fact is a hard floor” of standing doctrine. Id. Plaintiffs

have alleged no injury and, therefore, have no standing to invoke judicial power to

resolve the controversy. See generally 13B Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. §

3531.10 (“Standing doctrines reflect in many ways the rule that neither citizens nor

taxpayers can appear in court simply to insist that the government and its officials

adhere to the requirements of law.”).

         IV.      Standing as to Count 2, 10 V.S.A. § 578

         Plaintiffs fare no better under 10 V.S.A. § 578. Section 578(c) requires agencies to

“consider any increase or decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in their decision-making

procedures with respect to” certain decisions. It does not purport to require the adoption

of any rules or policies. In any event, for all the reasons Plaintiffs have failed to allege

facts showing standing under Count 1, they similarly have failed to do so under Count 2.
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22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         V.       Standing as to Count 3, 10 V.S.A. § 831(c)

         The same is true as to 10 V.S.A. § 831(c). This law provides that “An agency shall

initiate rulemaking to adopt as a rule an existing practice or procedure when so

requested by 25 or more persons.” Plaintiffs essentially argue under this Count that

because the legislature has authorized 25 persons to request that an agency undertake

rulemaking to adopt an existing policy, and they have so requested, that they thereby

necessarily have standing to enforce that request in Court regardless of ordinary

standing principles. This is simply not so.

         Standing addresses the right to bring an action in court. One must always have

standing to sue. The same requirement does not apply to requests for relief from

administrative agencies. See 13B Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 3531.13

(“Administrative agencies . . . should not be bound by judicial rules of standing in

determining what parties to admit to adjudicatory or rulemaking proceedings, any more

than they are bound by other judicial rules of procedure. So it has been recognized that

an agency may accord standing without satisfying Article III requirements.”).

         When there is a statutory right to sue, the Court will interpret that statute as

broadly as the principles of statutory interpretation appropriately suggest -- up to, but

not exceeding -- the boundaries of standing requirements. See generally, Capitol Plaza 2-

Lot Subdivision Capitol Plaza Major Site Plan, 3-1-19 Vtec, 2019 WL 7900450 (Vt.

Super. Ct. Nov. 12, 2019) (Walsh, J.) (addressing this issue in land use context).

         The Legislature also may seek to “augment” standing by creating a right to sue

that would not otherwise exist under traditional standing principles. See generally 13B

Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 3531.13 (legislative augmentation). To do

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this, it creates a new legal right by statute and then confers a right to sue for its breach

or deprivation.

         In recent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, however, that the ability

to augment standing legislatively is limited and still must satisfy the injury requirement.

See TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S.Ct. 2190, 2205 (2021) (“Importantly, this Court

has rejected the proposition that ‘a plaintiff automatically satisfies the injury-in-fact

requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to

authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right.’” (citation omitted)); Spokeo, Inc. v.

Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 341 (2016) (“Congress’ role in identifying and elevating intangible

harms does not mean that a plaintiff automatically satisfies the injury-in-fact

requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to

authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right.”); see also Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S.

811, 820 n.3 (1997); Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 100 (1979)

(“In no event, however, may Congress abrogate the Art. III minima.”).

         At the end of the day, then, even when a legislative body purports to establish a

right that can be enforced through a court action, the plaintiff must still establish an

actual injury to bring a case. As explained by the Supreme Court:

                To appreciate how the Article III “concrete harm” principle operates
         in practice, consider two different hypothetical plaintiffs. Suppose first that
         a Maine citizen’s land is polluted by a nearby factory. She sues the
         company, alleging that it violated a federal environmental law and damaged
         her property. Suppose also that a second plaintiff in Hawaii files a federal
         lawsuit alleging that the same company in Maine violated that same
         environmental law by polluting land in Maine. The violation did not
         personally harm the plaintiff in Hawaii.

                Even if Congress affords both hypothetical plaintiffs a cause of action
         (with statutory damages available) to sue over the defendant's legal
         violation, Article III standing doctrine sharply distinguishes between those
Order                                                                        Page 15 of 18
22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         two scenarios. The first lawsuit may of course proceed in federal court
         because the plaintiff has suffered concrete harm to her property. But the
         second lawsuit may not proceed because that plaintiff has not suffered any
         physical, monetary, or cognizable intangible harm traditionally recognized
         as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts. An uninjured plaintiff
         who sues in those circumstances is, by definition, not seeking to remedy any
         harm to herself but instead is merely seeking to ensure a defendant's
         “compliance with regulatory law” (and, of course, to obtain some money via
         the statutory damages). Spokeo, 578 U. S., at 345, 136 S.Ct. 1540
         (THOMAS, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Steel Co.,
         523 U.S., at 106–107, 118 S.Ct. 1003. Those are not grounds for Article III
         standing.

TransUnion LLC, 141 S.Ct. at 2205–06.

         Here, it is unnecessary to determine whether the Legislature, by virtue of 10

V.S.A. § 831(c), has permissibly or impermissibly attempted to augment anyone’s

standing to sue. Section 831 merely establishes a right to petition an agency and directs

that agency to do something when so petitioned. It does not purport to grant the

requesters any right to sue if the agency fails to act. Thus, it cannot represent any effort

by the Legislature to expand on traditional standing principles.

         Plaintiffs do not appear to contest that view and, instead, locate their purported

right to sue in the common-law writ of mandamus under Vt. R. Civ. P. 75. The claim

fares no better in that venue. Mandamus actions are not exempt from ordinary standing

principles, much less the injury requirement. Plaintiffs in mandamus actions must still

establish standing, and the same standards and considerations discussed in TransUnion

are applicable in such proceedings. See Wool v. Off. of Pro. Regul., 2020 VT 44, ¶¶ 9–12,

212 Vt. 305 (determining whether proponent of mandamus claim had standing); Wool v.

Menard, 2018 VT 23, ¶¶ 19–21, 207 Vt. 25, 35–36 (same). As noted above, Plaintiffs lack

injury sufficient to establish standing to bring this claim. Their reliance on Rule 75 does

not alter that equation.
Order                                                                       Page 16 of 18
22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
         V.       Standing as to Count 3, 3 V.S.A. § 835(a)

         Plaintiffs also have no standing to advance their 3 V.S.A. § 835(a) claim. That

statute directs agencies to post their “procedures and guidance documents” on their

websites by January 1, 2024. If they do not, the agencies can neither cite, nor otherwise

rely on them. Plaintiffs represent that the three policies at issue in this case are not

posted on the Departments’ websites. They ask the Court to order the Departments to

post them. Section 835 does not authorize any private action to force an agency to post

anything.

         The lack of any injury to Plaintiffs is manifest. They already possess the policies

they would like the Departments to post online. The only palpable need for any such

posting is to facilitate access. Plaintiffs need no online access from the Departments to

something they already possess.

         Standing Trees’ independent claim to its own organizational standing as to 3

V.S.A. § 835(a) fares no better. Standing Trees argues that it had to devote its resources

to public records requests to obtain the three policies that, in its view, the Departments

should have proactively made available online. Doing so, it claims, diminished the

resources it had available for its advocacy work. That lost opportunity to advocate, it

argues, is its injury for standing purposes. The State responds that Standing Trees

cannot manufacture its own standing in this manner, but it is unnecessary to go down

that road.

         Whatever injury Standing Trees may believe it suffered for having to make public

records requests, it now possesses the policies it sought. If there was an injury in the

past, there is none now. See Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488, 494 (2009)

Order                                                                       Page 17 of 18
22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont
(“We know of no precedent for the proposition that when a plaintiff has sued to challenge

the lawfulness of certain action or threatened action but has settled that suit, he retains

standing to challenge the basis for that action (here, the regulation in the abstract),

apart from any concrete application that threatens imminent harm to his interests.”).

Posting the policies online now would redress nothing as to any injury perceived by

Standing Trees. It does not need to make more public records requests to obtain what it

already has.4

                                                      Conclusion

         For the foregoing reasons, the State’s motion to dismiss is granted. Except as

noted above, because Plaintiffs lack standing to sue as to all their claims, it is

unnecessary to address the many other reasons the State seeks dismissal.

         Electronically signed on September 1, 2023, pursuant to V.R.E.F. 9(d).

                                                            _______________________
                                                             Timothy B. Tomasi
                                                             Superior Court Judge

4 In any event, the Court also agrees that Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim as to this

Count. Section 835(a) does not stand for the proposition that all agencies must
immediately post to their websites all existing procedures and guidance documents.
Instead, it provides a deadline (which has not yet come to pass) by which agencies must
determine which materials to include in their compilation and post publicly if the agency
intends to cite or rely on them after the deadline. There is no merit to a claim
attempting to force an agency to post materials under § 835(a) prior to the January 2024
deadline.
Order                                                                                 Page 18 of 18
22-CV-04195 Standing Trees Inc. et al v. State of Vermont