Court Opinion

ID: 9425503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:54.79305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.992036
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in part.
I join the judgment of the Court and Part I of the Court’s opinion which holds that the complaint “failed to satisfy the threshold requirement imposed by Art. Ill of the Constitution that those who seek to invoke the power of federal courts must allege an actual case or controversy.” Ante, at 493.
When we arrive at that conclusion, it follows, it seems to me, that we are precluded from considering any other issue presented for review. Thus, the Court’s additional discussion of the question whether a case for equitable relief was stated amounts to an advisory opinion that we are powerless to render. Rayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792); United States v. Evans, 213 U. S. 297, 301 (1909); Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346, 360-361 (1911); Stearns v. Wood, 236 U. S. 75 (1915); Coffman v. Breeze Corps., 323 U. S. 316 (1945); United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75 (1947); Paschall v. Christie-Stewart, Inc., ante, at 101-102.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter stated the applicable principle in speaking for the Court in International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union v. Boyd, 347 U. S. 222, 223 (1954):
“On this appeal, appellee contends that the District Court should not have reached the statutory and constitutional questions — that it should have *505dismissed the suit for want of a 'case or controversy/ for lack of standing on the union’s part to bring this action, .... Since the first objection is conclusive, there is an end of the matter.”
I would adhere to that principle. Either there is no case or controversy and that is the end of the matter, or there is a case or controversy and the Court may go on to a decision on the merits. In my view, the Court may not have it both ways.