Court Opinion

ID: 9573819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:59:38.30836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:24.842572
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
This is without question a close case. As the case law laid out by the majority suggests, “injury in fact” can be an elusive phenomenon. Although in the present case an injury is arguably traceable to the deposit of toxic substances in potable water, such phenomena appear and disappear from one case to the next depending on subtle twists in the allegations, turning between the real and the hypothetical. Compare generally Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (Scalia, J.), and Summers v. Earth Island Institute, — U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 1142, 173 L.Ed.2d 1 (2009) (Scalia, J.), with Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw, 528 U.S. 167, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) (Ginsburg, J.). I write separately to make the point that the Supreme Court’s case law on this subject is both unclear in purpose and extraordinarily difficult to reconcile. Close cases like this one ought to make that point clearly. In particular, where a citizen-suit provision potentially sets the bar for proving the merits lower than the bar for proving standing, it is incumbent upon us to carefully examine why the plaintiff before us either has or has not established “injury in fact.” Perhaps more important, this plaintiffs case has procedural flaws not addressed by the majority.
The Clean Water Act includes a citizen-suit provision stating that “any citizen may commence a civil action on his own behalf against any person ... who is alleged to be in violation of an effluent standard or limitation under this chapter.” 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a)(1). An “effluent standard or limitation” is defined to include any term or condition of an approved permit. See id., § 1365(f). Citizens are therefore authorized to bring suit against any NPDES permit holder who has allegedly violated its permit. See Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Gaston Copper Recycling Corp., 204 F.3d 149, 152 (4th Cir.2000). The Act also includes a statutory standing requirement, which defines “citizen” as “a person or persons having an interest which is or may be adversely affected.” 33 U.S.C. § 1365(g). Congress has explained that this standing requirement confers standing to its constitutional limits. See Gaston Copper, 204 F.3d at 152 (citation omitted). Even so, the broad nature of the citizen-suit provision means that in many cases, *744like this one, the real test will be proof of standing, not of the merits.
To have standing under the “case or controversy” requirement of Article III of the Constitution, an individual must show an injury in fact that is both concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; that the injury is traceable to the challenged action; and that it is redressable. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130; Sierra Club v. Franklin County Power of Illinois, LLC, 546 F.3d 918, 925 (7th Cir.2008) (Franklin County Power). “.Because these elements ‘are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part of the ... case, each element must be supported ... with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation.’ ” Franklin County Power, 546 F.3d at 925 (quoting Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130).
• Though 'the test for showing injury in fact is easy enough to state, it is almost hopelessly confusing to apply. We are told that “environmental plaintiffs adequately allege injury in fact when they aver that they use the affected area and are persons ‘for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened’ by the challenged activity.” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693 (quoting Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 735, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972)). “Of course, the desire to use or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for purposes of standing.” Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562-63, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (citing Morton, 405 U.S. at 734, 92 S.Ct. 1361). But the injury in fact test requires more than an injury to a cognizable interest. It requires that the plaintiff be “among the injured.” Id. Nevertheless, the “ ‘injury-in-fact necessary for standing need not be large, an identifiable trifle will suffice.’ ” Franklin County Power, 546 F.3d at 925 (quoting LaFleur v. Whitman, 300 F.3d 256, 270 (2d Cir.2002)) (further internal quotation marks and citations omitted). These statements raise more questions than they answer. What is the “affected area”? How do we determine whether someone’s aesthetic or recreational values will be “lessened” other than by their say-so? What counts as a “trifle” sufficient to place someone “among the injured”?
This guidance is particularly difficult to follow where the plaintiff is on the bubble: Pollack does not live in North Chicago, where the .drinking water is concededly drawn from the “affected area” of the lake, but he doesn’t live in East Chicago1 either, or even as far as Evanston.2 Is Highland Park, thirteen miles away, close enough to be “among the injured”?
The majority recites the relevant case law without really engaging with it in a way that gives an answer to this question. The majority quotes Franklin County Power at length, for instance, including the court’s explanation that, although “we don’t know if the particulate matter from the plant will blot out the sky or merely create a thin haze that’s not visible to the naked eye, .... [w]e do know ... that the plant will release some pollutants and that McKasson believes these pollutants will ruin her ability to enjoy Rend Lake and taint the surrounding area.” Franklin County Power, 546 F.3d at 927. The same can be said here — we know that the gun range has discharged lead in the lake, and we know that Pollack believes that lead in the lake will ruin his ability to enjoy drinking his water, eating fish and watching waterfowl in the Great Lakes watershed. *745In fact, this case is arguably an easier case for standing than Franklin County Power. There, the power plant in question had yet to be built — the injury was, almost by definition, hypothetical. Here, not only has the filing range admitted to discharging lead into the lake, it has admitted to doing so without a permit over the course of decades. And whatever else can be said about Pollack’s injury, it is beyond cavil that lead is a toxic substance that even in very small amounts causes harm when ingested by the human body. The majority appears to depart from Franklin County PoivePs capacious standard, and to settle on a narrower, more demanding requirement.
This is particularly unfortunate here, where the plaintiffs’ case is flawed for procedural reasons that may not require us to revisit Franklin County Power’s recent pronouncements on standing. The plaintiffs arguably failed to meet their burden of proof. Pollack correctly argues that he need not show environmental degradation to establish standing for a permit violation under the Clean Water Act. See Gaston Copper, 204 F.3d at 159. “[T]he Supreme Court does not require such proof.” Id. Gaston Copper explained that, in Laidlaw, the Court found that “several citizen affidavits attesting to reduced use of a waterway out of reasonable fear and concern of pollution ‘adequately documented injury in fact.’ ” Id. (quoting Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693). “The Court required no evidence of actual harm to the waterway ...” Id. Nevertheless, because the defendants here have challenged the factual basis for the plaintiffs’ standing to sue, Pollack was required to present some competent proof of his injuries, and his proof is subject to refutation by the defendants.
On a factual challenge to a plaintiffs standing, “ ‘the district court may properly look beyond the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint and view whatever evidence has been submitted on the issue to determine whether in fact subject matter jurisdiction exists.’ ” Apex Digital, Inc. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 572 F.3d 440, 445 (7th Cir.2009) (quoting Evers v. Astrue, 536 F.3d 651, 656-57 (7th Cir.2008)) (further internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Indeed, “ ‘the trial court is free to weigh the evidence and satisfy itself as to the existence of its power to hear the case.’ ” Id. (quoting Mortensen v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 549 F.2d 884, 891 (3d Cir.1977)). Again, it is undisputed that the defendants regularly discharged lead bullets into Lake Michigan without a permit and that lead is a toxic chemical that can affect drinking water. The narrow question is whether Pollack had a “reasonable fear” that his drinking water was unsafe.
Pollack presented evidence of the “dynamic nature” of the waters in Lake Michigan, suggesting that the lead in the water next to North Chicago can migrate thirteen miles south to Highland Park. The majority brushes this evidence aside, stating that the EPA report Pollack offered in support does not say what he said it says. The majority asserts that “it is commonly understood that air pollution can travel three miles through the air .... [but] it is not readily apparent that Pollack would be affected by the shooting at issue here.” Supra at 741-42. The majority goes outside the record and cites no authority for its assertion regarding what is commonly understood about air pollution. Even accepting this assertion, it is also commonly understood (at least among boaters in Lake Michigan) that the currents at the foot of the lake, as distinguished from the larger body of water generally, do travel counter-clockwise at least part of the year, and therefore the plaintiffs’ logic does not implicate the entire lake or every point on its shoreline. It also misses the mark to *746take Pollack’s argument “to its extreme” and to posit whether someone on the other side of Lake Michigan would have standing here — Pollack is the plaintiff before us, and the facts and circumstances of his case, namely his distance thirteen miles from the source of pollution, are what we must address. Setting all of that aside, the district court assumed that Pollack’s assertions regarding the lake’s currents were true. It is not for us to find otherwise.3
More to the point is the fact that the defendants presented their own evidence tending to rebut what little evidence that Pollack did put forth. The defendants showed not only that Highland Park (unlike North Chicago) draws its drinking water from intakes outside the roughly 3,000-acre area presumably affected by the firing range, but also that Highland Park and North Chicago have attributed the small amount of lead in their drinking water to corrosive pipes, not to the firing range at issue here. In this respect, then, our case is unlike Gaston Copper, where there was competent evidence that the pollutants in question would travel more than 16 miles downstream, passing through the plaintiffs private lake on the way. Here, Pollack’s limited evidence that lead has traveled or will travel south to Highland Park and enter the plaintiffs drinking water was outweighed in the view of the district court by the defendants’ evidence of an alternative cause for lead in the water — the corrosive pipes just mentioned. The district court properly exercised its fact-finding role and concluded that the defendants had rebutted Pollack’s evidence of standing. See Apex Digital, Inc., 572 F.3d at 445. This is what really seems to tip the balance in Pollack’s case.
Perhaps what we can say here, then, is that the farther the plaintiff is from the “area of injury,” the more evidence he generally must put forth to prove that he is “among the injured.” Perhaps, however, this case resolves as it does merely because of the procedural turns it took. If the defendants had made a facial challenge rather than a factual challenge to Pollack’s standing, or if Pollack had put forth more evidence of lead’s likelihood of traveling thirteen miles south from North Chicago, then the complaint may have withstood the motion to dismiss. The caselaw is so unclear, however, that we cannot say more than that.
Pollack’s claims regarding aesthetic and recreational injuries are less persuasive and the majority addresses them adequately. Pollack does not allege that he uses the affected area. See Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693 (quoting Morton, 405 U.S. at 735, 92 S.Ct. 1361). Instead, he says he enjoys watching the wildlife “in the Great Lakes watershed,” and that he uses public areas “along the Illinois portion of Lake Michigan,” and that he enjoys “eating freshwater and ocean fish.” These interests are far broader than an interest in the area affected by the firing range, however that area might be defined. As the district court pointed out, and the majority reprises, the Illinois shoreline Pollack claims to use is 61 miles long, and the Great Lakes watershed encompasses all five of the Great Lakes and is 750 miles wide. Pollack never alleges that he used the beach at Foss Park, adjacent to the range, or any beach near there.
*747Pollack’s averments are thus barely— but only barely — insufficient to establish injury in fact, and unfortunately may impair the salutary significance of Franklin County Power.
For these reasons, with some reluctance, I concur.

. East Chicago, Indiana is 60 miles south of the gun range by car.

. Evanston, Illinois is 26 miles south of the gun range.

. The majority also focuses on the fact that the lead level in Highland Park’s water is not high enough to violate federal standards. This may be beside the point, given that Pollack was not required to show any environmental degradation to satisfy the requirements of standing. See Gaston Copper, 204 F.3d at 160. Lead is toxic in any amount, and the administrative limit cited by the majority is a practical rather than an ideal ceiling.