Article III Standing Requirements

Article III of the U.S. Constitution sets four jurisdictional limits applicable to federal courts, which can impact or limit whether a party can bring their case through the federal court system. If any of the justiciability doctrines apply to a case, a federal court cannot adjudicate, i.e., decide it. 

The four justiciability doctrines applicable to federal courts are as follows:

• Ripeness refers to whether a party has brought a case that is too early to adjudicate. For example, suppose a plaintiff files a case regarding an injury that has yet to occur. In that case, the courts may not have jurisdiction to hear it.

• Mootness refers to whether the case involves an actual controversy. For example, the case is moot if the parties enter into a settlement agreement. 

• The political question doctrine renders a case nonjusticiable when the Constitution vests power to address the issue in either the legislative or executive branch. Courts analyze six factors when determining whether a case involves a political question. 

• The standing requirements refer to whether the proper party filed the lawsuit. Generally speaking, a plaintiff must have a "personal stake" in a case's outcome to have standing. 

To have standing to bring suit in federal court, the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact" (or is in immediate danger of sustaining an injury). This means the defendant's actions caused the plaintiff's injury, and the court can redress the injury. 

This article describes Article III's standing requirements. It also discusses how the Supreme Court has interpreted the requirements over time. 

The Case or Controversy Clause

The Constitution's standing requirements originate from Article III, Section 2, Clause 1. The clause sets out the judiciary's power to adjudicate cases. It states the following:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State, between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

This clause, known as the "Case or Controversy Clause," sets minimum standing requirements. A plaintiff must meet these requirements to file their case in federal court. However, these requirements do not directly apply to state courts. 

The Standing Doctrines, Explained

Today, most cases involving standing doctrine issues relate to questions about the constitutionality of public laws or government action.

For example, a private citizen sues the government regarding an alleged constitutional violation. The issues with standing occur in these cases because, generally, Congress and the executive branch are "responsible for vindicating the public interest."

This section describes various aspects of the standing doctrines, including Article III and prudential standing. 

Article III Standing 

The Supreme Court has interpreted Article III's standing doctrine as requiring the plaintiff (the person or entity filing the lawsuit) to demonstrate each of the following:

• Injury in fact: They suffered (or will suffer) a concrete injury.

• Causation: The alleged injury is "fairly traceable to the challenged conduct."

• Redressability: The court can redress the alleged injury if it grants the plaintiff's requested relief. 

Satisfying these three requirements is straightforward in most cases. However, some cases present challenging questions about whether the plaintiff has standing. Some of these cases are described in more detail below.

More recently, the Supreme Court's decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021) noted that the injury-in-fact prong of Article III could be reduced to "no concrete harm, no standing."

The "Injury in Fact" section below discusses the case in more detail.

Prudential Standing

The Supreme Court created a "set of prudential considerations" that limited federal courts' jurisdiction based on standing.

Prudential standing reflects the federal judiciary's self-imposed limits on its jurisdiction. The Court has also strengthened the separation of powers by limiting its jurisdiction regarding questions that other branches of government can more appropriately address. 

The prudential considerations prevent plaintiffs from filing "abstract questions of wide public significance." They also prevent lawsuits involving "generalized grievances" that could be "most appropriately addressed in the representative branches." The Supreme Court addressed these issues in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United (1982) and Warth v. Seldin (1975).

Prudential standing prevents plaintiffs from:

• Filing a claim based on another person's legal rights

• Filing a claim based on "generalized grievances" that many people have and other political branches can address

• Filing a claim that falls outside of the "zone of interest" that the law the plaintiff bases their lawsuit on protects. In other words, the "zone of interest" test asks "whether this particular class of persons has a right to sue under this substantive statute."

It also generally prevents courts from hearing cases or appeals in which the parties agree. For more information, see the discussion on United States v. Windsor below. 

In cases where a plaintiff challenges a federal law or government action, the Supreme Court uses the "zone of interest" test to determine standing. 

In a 1970 case, the Court also expanded what constituted an injury. It recognized that an injury could also include "aesthetic, conservational, and recreational" interests. This expanded plaintiffs' ability to file citizen suits.

United States v. Windsor

To understand prudential standing, consider the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor (2013). In it, two women from New York married in Canada in 2007. In 2009, one of the women died and left her estate to her wife. The surviving spouse tried to claim a tax exemption for the estate.

However, a federal law prevented her from claiming the exemption. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) excluded same-sex partners from its definition of "spouse."

The surviving spouse paid the taxes totaling $363,053. Then, she filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. 

A U.S. District Court ruled that the government had to refund the amount she had paid in taxes. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed. The government appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

While the lawsuit was pending, President Barack Obama decided not to defend the law's constitutionality. However, he instructed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to continue enforcing it.

The Supreme Court noted that when the District Court heard the case:

• The spouse had suffered a concrete injury,

• A "concrete disagreement" between the parties about the validity of DOMA existed, and

• The District Court could redress her alleged injury if it ruled in her favor.

However, given the DOJ's position that it would no longer defend the federal statute — while at the same time denying tax refunds to same-sex spouses — the case became more complicated.

The Court first described Article III and prudential standing. Article III standing relates to and enforces "the Constitution's case-or-controversy requirement." Prudential standing "embodies judicially self-imposed limits on the exercise of federal jurisdiction."

The Court concluded that the United States had Article III standing to appeal. The Court reasoned that the District Court's order to pay the surviving spouse resulted in an economic injury.

It did not matter that the government agreed that the refund was appropriate — that did not change the fact that the payment constituted an economic injury. Therefore, the government had Article III standing to appeal.

Turning to the prudential standing question, the Court cited Baker v. Carr (1962). That case stated that even when a party has Article III standing, "prudential considerations demand that the Court insist upon 'that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.'"

In other words, in a case like this, where the parties agreed, and the government was reluctant to try to prevail, could the Court hear the case and render a decision based on prudential considerations?

A friend of the court brief argued that, given the government's position that DOMA was unconstitutional and the lower court's order to refund the surviving spouse, the case should have ended there. It also argued that the Court of Appeals should have dismissed the appeal.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that it could decide the case on its merits. In part, it did not dismiss based on prudential standing because even if the government did not seem interested in defending DOMA, others were. The Court acknowledged, however, that the arguments to dismiss the case on prudential standing grounds had merit.

The Court also noted the separation of powers issue that could ensue in situations like this. For example, the Court noted that when a law allegedly conflicts with the Constitution, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."

A situation like this, where the president determined that a law was unconstitutional, infringed on the judicial branch's role. Additionally, the Court said the president's act to nullify a law passed by Congress on their own initiative without a court's determination was also a separation of powers issue. 

Hollingsworth v. Perry

Sometimes, courts allow parties who did not suffer an injury to file a claim on behalf of a third party who allegedly suffered an injury. To do so, the plaintiff must have an agency relationship with the injured third party. 

The Court considered this in Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013), which concerned Proposition 8 in California. Proposition 8 amended California's Constitution by defining marriage as a union between men and women. 

The issue was whether the proponents of Proposition 8 satisfied the standing requirements to defend it on appeal. The Court determined that they had not suffered an injury themselves. Then, the Court analyzed whether the petitioners had the authority to sue on California's behalf. A state law allowed them to defend the proposition. However, the Court determined they did not have standing. 

Specifically, the Court noted that the proponents were not state officials. They also did not have a principal-agent relationship with the state. Instead, they were defending Proposition 8 as private citizens. The Court determined they had only a "generalized interest" in defending Proposition 8. Therefore, the Court ruled they did not have standing to defend it on appeal. 

How Does a Party Prove They Meet Article III's Standing Requirements?

From the 1960s to the early 1980s, the Supreme Court interpreted whether a party had standing to sue based on whether they had a sufficient personal stake in the case's outcome. 

Before 1970, a plaintiff needed to show they had suffered a "legal wrong" to have standing to file a case. Then, the Supreme Court devised a two-prong test for standing, which involved demonstrating an injury in fact. As noted above, the Court also promulgated a "zone of interest" test.

However, the Supreme Court clarified in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United (1982) that a "personal, ideological interest" is not enough to satisfy the standing requirement. Instead, the plaintiff must meet the "injury in fact" standard to have standing to sue. 

Together with prudential standing, the standing doctrine requires that a plaintiff demonstrate that a defendant's actions injured them in a "concrete and personal way." The Court noted this in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007), quoting Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurrence in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992). It does not matter if the injury is widespread or shared between many different people. What matters is whether the plaintiff actually suffered an alleged injury. 

The following section describes how plaintiffs may prove to the court that they satisfy Article III's standing requirements. 

Injury in Fact

Of the standing doctrine's three elements, proving the injury in fact requirement may seem the most straightforward. This means the plaintiff must allege that the defendant did more than violate a procedural federal law.

Instead, they must allege the defendant's conduct resulted in a "concrete injury" to the plaintiff. In other words, the injury must "actually exist," or the defendant's actions resulted in a "risk of real harm," as the Court noted in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016).

The issue of whether an injury "actually exists" in, say, a catastrophic car accident is relatively easy. However, most cases involving disputes regarding standing involve questions of public laws or government or administrative actions. In cases where the injury is intangible, the "injury in fact" requirement is more challenging to satisfy. 

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez

The U.S. Supreme Court expanded on Article III standing in a 2021 case, TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez. 

Sergio Ramirez was the class representative in a class action lawsuit against TransUnion, a credit reporting agency. Ramirez and his wife tried to buy a car in 2011. When the car dealership ran a credit check on the couple, it learned Ramirez was on a "terrorist list." The car dealership could not sell a car to him due to his presence on the list. 

TransUnion, who had prepared the report, ultimately removed him from the list. Ramirez filed a cause of action against TransUnion in federal court, alleging it had violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). 

A U.S. District Court eventually certified a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone whom TransUnion notified may appear on said terrorist list. The class consisted of 8,185 people. Of the class, 1,853 members were placed on the same list as Ramirez. Therefore, TransUnion did not share the reports of 6,332 class members. 

The jury awarded $1,000 to each class member for TransUnion's violations of the FCRA and $6,000 each for punitive damages. After an appeal, TransUnion had to pay approximately $32 million for its violations and punitive damages. 

TransUnion appealed the case to the Supreme Court. One issue it raised was whether Article III allowed a class action suit for damages when most class members (6,332 of the 8,185) did not suffer injuries similar to the class representative, Ramirez. 

The Supreme Court reiterated the elements a plaintiff must demonstrate to satisfy Article III's standing requirements:

• They must show a concrete injury in fact

• They must show the injury was fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct

• That a favorable decision could redress them for their injuries

The Court then took the analysis a step further by clarifying how an injured party must demonstrate a concrete injury. It wrote that courts must determine whether the alleged injury bears "a 'close relationship' to a harm 'traditionally' recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts." It added that courts must assess "whether the plaintiff has 'identified a close historical or common-law analogue' for his or her alleged injury."

Regarding "tangible harms," such as a physical or monetary injury, the Court wrote that those "easily" met the concrete injury standard. "Intangible harms," such as reputational damages or sharing private information, could also qualify. For an intangible harm to qualify as a concrete injury, it must satisfy the "close relationship" test. 

The Court then applied these rules to the class action case. It held that Ramirez and the 1,853 class members had Article III standing due to TransUnion's sharing of their information and placing them on the terrorist list. The Court ruled that placing them on the list caused them to suffer a concrete injury because it listed them as "terrorists." Although it was an intangible harm, it was closely related to defamation, a common-law tort.

The Court ruled that the 6,332 members who did not end up on the list did not have constitutional standing because they did not suffer a concrete injury. These class members argued that the potential risk of TransUnion sharing their information was sufficient to constitute a concrete injury. However, the Court ruled that these class members had not shown they had sustained any harm whatsoever. Therefore, they did not have Article III standing to sue. 

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent in the case, which three other justices joined. Justice Thomas wrote that, for years, courts had held that "injury in law to a private right was enough to create a case or controversy." He wrote that each class member had "established a violation of his or her private rights," given the jury's finding that TransUnion had violated duties owed to each member.