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Summers v. Earth Island Institute

Supreme Court of the United States · 2009 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawArticle III standingProcedural injuryInjunctive reliefstandingArticle IIIinjury in factprocedural right in vacuo

Facts

Congress required the Forest Service to establish notice, comment, and appeal procedures for certain proposed actions. Forest Service regulations and handbook provisions exempted small fire-rehabilitation and timber-salvage projects from those procedures by categorically excluding them from environmental review requirements. Respondents originally challenged the regulations in connection with the Burnt Ridge Project, but that dispute was later settled and was no longer at issue. Respondents then sought to continue their facial challenge to the regulations based on affidavits from members asserting recreational interests in national forests generally and intentions to visit unspecified forests in the future.

Issue

Whether respondents had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief against Forest Service regulations after the concrete Burnt Ridge dispute had been settled, where respondents identified no other specific application of the regulations threatening imminent and concrete harm to a member's interests. Also implicated was whether an asserted deprivation of notice-and-comment procedures alone could supply standing.

Rule

To obtain injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show a concrete and particularized injury in fact that is actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical, fairly traceable to the challenged action, and likely to be prevented or redressed by a favorable decision. A deprivation of a procedural right without some concrete interest affected by that deprivation is insufficient to create Article III standing, and an organization must make 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.

Blue Canyon Conservancy sues the U.S. Land Stewardship Bureau in federal court in Portland, Oregon, challenging a regulation that exempts certain small trail-clearing projects from notice-and-comment procedures. Its only supporting declaration states that member Elena Cruz enjoys hiking on federal lands throughout the Pacific Northwest and hopes to visit affected areas again in the future, but it identifies no specific project or location she plans to use.

Does the organization have Article III standing to seek an injunction 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. When the plaintiff is not the direct object of the regulation, standing is harder to establish and requires a showing that application of the regulation will concretely affect the plaintiff. A member's vague plans to use federal lands generally, untethered to any particular exempted project, do not establish imminent injury. An organization may assert associational standing, but only through a member facing concrete harm.