Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

504 U.S. 555 (1992), argued 3 Dec. 1991, decided 12 June 1992 by a vote of 7 to 2; Scalia for the Court, Kennedy concurring in part, joined by Souter, Stevens concurring in the judgment, Blackmun in dissent, joined by O'Connor. In Lujan, which held that the environmental plaintiffs did not have standing to bring suit, Justice Antonin Scalia articulated his theory of standing as an element of the separation of powers. The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service had rescinded a joint regulation that required federal agencies to coordinate with one of the services if the agency's actions in a foreign nation would affect endangered species. Arguing that the rescission violated the Endangered Species Act, the Defenders of Wildlife sued the agencies under the act's citizen suit provision, which authorizes “any person” to bring an action against any agency or person alleged to be in violation of the act.

Prior cases had established that standing derives from Article III's limitation that federal courts hear only “cases and controversies.” One of the requirements for standing is that the plaintiff must demonstrate it is actually suffering or about to suffer injury. The Court held that “congressional conferral upon all persons of an abstract, self‐contained, non‐instrumental ‘right’ to have the Executive observe the procedures required by law” (p. 573) does not create a “right” the violation of which satisfies the injury‐in‐fact requirement of standing. Thus, the citizen suit provision did not suffice to create standing for the plaintiff. In explaining this conclusion, the Court's opinion indicated that the Constitution assigns the president the duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Were Congress by statute able to create a judicially enforceable right simply to make agencies follow the law, it would be usurping the president's constitutional duty and violating the separation of powers.

Lujan was one of a series of cases that interpreted the requirements of standing strictly, and made it more difficult for plaintiffs to bring cases in federal courts. More recently, with the addition of Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Federal Election Commission v. Akins (1998) and Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw (2000), the Court applied the standing requirements more liberally.

— William Funk

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 3, 1991 Decided June 12, 1992
Full case name: Manuel Lujan, Jr., Secretary of the Interior, Petitioner v. Defenders of Wildlife, et al. Citations: 504 U.S. 555; 112 S. Ct. 2130; 119 L. Ed. 2d 351; 60 U.S.L.W. 4495; 1992 U.S. LEXIS 3543; 34 ERC (BNA) 1785; 92 Cal. Daily Op. Service 4985; 92 Daily Journal DAR 7876; 92 Daily Journal DAR 8967; 22 ELR 20913; 6 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 374 Prior history: Defendant's motion to dismiss granted, Defenders of Wildlife v. Hodel, 658 F.Supp. 43 (D. Minn. 1987); reversed and remanded, 851 F.2d 1035 (8th Cir. 1988); summary judgment granted to plaintiffs, 707 F. Supp. 1082 (D. Minn. 1988); affirmed, sub nom. Defenders of Wildlife v. Lujan, 911 F.2d 117 (8th Cir. 1988); cert. granted, 500 U.S. 915 (1991) Subsequent history: None
Holding
Plaintiffs did not have standing to bring suit under the Endangered Species Act, because the threat of a species's extinction alone did not establish an individual and nonspeculative private injury. Eighth Circuit reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas
Case opinions
Majority by: Scalia (parts I, II, III-A, IV) Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas Concurrence by: Scalia (part III-B) Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Thomas Concurrence by: Kennedy Joined by: Souter Concurrence by: Stevens Dissent by: Blackmun Joined by: O'Connor
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. III; 16 U.S.C. § 1536 (§ 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973)

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a group of wildlife conservation and other environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge regulations jointly issued by the U.S. Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce, regarding the geographic area to which a particular section of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 applied.

Said Lily Henning of the Legal Times:

In [this] decision, hailed by the right and attacked by the left as well as by a broad swath of legal scholars, the Court made clear that plaintiffs must suffer a concrete, discernible injury -- not a "conjectural or hypothetical one" -- to be able to bring suit in federal court. It, in effect, made it more difficult for plaintiffs to challenge the actions of a government agency when the actions don't directly affect them. [1]

Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia stated that Defenders had failed to satisfy Constitutional requirements for “injury in fact” that would grant standing under the Endangered Species Act. He wrote that the Court rejected the view that the citizen suit provision of the statute conferred upon “all persons an abstract, self-contained, non-instrumental ‘right’ to have the Executive observe the procedures required by law”. Rather, he explained, the plaintiff must have suffered a tangible and particular harm, not unlike the requirement in common law.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 504

External links

• "Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife" on Wikisource.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)