Earth Island Institute v. Summers

Supreme Court of the United States · 2009 · Federal Courts

Federal CourtsStandingArticle IIIProcedural Injurystandinginjury in factprocedural injuryorganizational standing

Facts

Congress required the Forest Service to create notice, comment, and appeal procedures for certain proposed actions. Forest Service regulations exempted small fire-rehabilitation and timber-salvage projects categorically excluded from EIS or EA requirements, including salvage sales of 250 acres or less, from those procedures. Respondents originally challenged those procedures as applied to the Burnt Ridge Project, but that dispute was later settled and the district court stated Burnt Ridge was no longer at issue. Respondents then continued to seek invalidation of the regulations in the abstract, relying on member affidavits asserting recreational interests in national forests.

Issue

Whether respondents had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief against the Forest Service regulations after the Burnt Ridge dispute had been settled, where no remaining concrete application of the regulations threatened imminent harm to an identified member. Also implicated was whether an alleged deprivation of notice-and-comment procedures alone sufficed for standing.

Rule

To obtain injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show an actual or imminent, concrete and particularized injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the challenged action and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. A deprivation of a procedural right, standing alone, does not create Article III standing; the procedural violation must threaten a plaintiff's concrete interests. Organizational standing requires specific allegations showing that at least one identified member has suffered or will suffer such harm.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

The Great Lakes Habitat Alliance sues a federal land agency in district court to enjoin a regulation that exempts certain small habitat-restoration projects from public notice and administrative appeal. Its only member affidavit says that Dana Keller enjoys visiting federal grasslands in Kansas and Nebraska every year and hopes to keep doing so in the future.

Does Dana's affidavit likely establish standing for the organization to seek injunctive relief against the regulation?

Explanation. To obtain injunctive relief, the plaintiff must show a concrete and particularized injury that is actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Under the majority's reasoning, a member's broad plan to visit large areas of public land, without identifying a particular project or site that threatens that member's concrete interests, is insufficient. A procedural deprivation alone is not enough, and organizations may assert member standing if at least one identified member faces the requisite harm. (Derived from Earth Island Institute v. Summers (n.d.).)