Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog

Today’s SCOTUS Cert Grant on Article III Standing: Spokeo v. Robins

The Supreme Court granted certiorari today in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, which presents the question:

Whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a bare violation of a federal statute.

The Court granted cert. notwithstanding an invited brief from the Solicitor General arguing against review. That brief explained:

The court of appeals held that respondent had established Article III standing to sue petitioner “for publishing inaccurate personal information about [respondent]” because petitioner allegedly had violated respondent’s “statutory rights” protecting his “personal interests in the handling of his credit information.” Pet. App. 1a, 8a. The court below correctly concluded that the publication of such false information is a cognizable Article III injury.

You can find all the cert-stage briefing—and follow the merits briefs as they come in—at SCOTUSblog.

 

 

Campos on Davis on Standing and State Action

Now available on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is an essay by Sergio Campos entitled Standing (in) for the Government. Sergio reviews Seth Davis’s recent article, Standing Doctrine’s State Action Problem, 91 Notre Dame L. Rev. (forthcoming 2015).

 

 

Alabama Supreme Court Issues Writ of Mandamus, Enjoins Probate Judges from Issuing Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples

This evening the Alabama Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of mandamus that had been filed earlier this month by two groups opposing same-sex marriage, purporting to be “relators” for the State of Alabama. Here is the 134-page per curiam opinion, which concludes with an order enjoining Alabama probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Here is the full text of the order:

The named respondents are ordered to discontinue the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Further, and pursuant to relator Judge Enslen's request that this Court, "by any and all lawful means available to it," ensure compliance with Alabama law with respect to the issuance of marriage licenses, each of the probate judges in this State other than the named respondents and Judge Davis are joined as respondents in the place of the "Judge Does" identified in the petition. Within five business days following the issuance of this order, each such probate judge may file an answer responding to the relator's petition for the writ of mandamus and showing cause, if any, why said probate judge should not be bound hereby. Subject to further order of this Court upon receipt and consideration of any such answer, each such probate judge is temporarily enjoined from issuing any marriage license contrary to Alabama law as explained in this opinion. As to Judge Davis's request to be dismissed on the ground that he is subject to a potentially conflicting federal court order, he is directed to advise this Court, by letter brief, no later than 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, 2015, as to whether he is bound by any existing federal court order regarding the issuance of any marriage license other than the four marriage licenses he was ordered to issue in Strawser.

The last sentence, of course, refers to the federal injunction issued by Judge Callie Granade against Mobile County probate judge Don Davis last month. 

 

 

 

Alabama Supreme Court Orders Briefing on Mandamus Petition Seeking to Halt Same-Sex Marriages

Last week we noted that an “Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus” had been filed in the Alabama Supreme Court seeking to order probate judges in Alabama not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples—or to recognize any marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples. The petition was filed by the Alabama Policy Institute and Alabama Citizens Action Program, claiming to be relators for the State of Alabama itself. You can find a copy of the petition here (as an attachment to Mobile probate judge Don Davis’s filing in the Strawser case).

Late last Friday—after federal judge Callie Granade had issued an injunction the day before forbidding the Mobile probate judge from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples—the Alabama Supreme Court issued the following order regarding the mandamus petition:

“The respondents are ordered to file answers and, if they choose to do so, briefs, addressing issues raised by the petition, including , but not limited to, any issue relating to standing or otherwise relating to this Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, and any issue relating to the showing necessary for temporary relief as requested in the petition. Such answers and briefs shall be filed by 5:00 p.m. on February 18, 2015. Thereafter, the petitioners may file their respective replies no later than 5:00 p.m. on February 20, 2015.”

Kent Faulk has this report on the order. Two Justices—Shaw & Main—dissented from the order, with Justice Shaw calling it “an unprecedented attempt to control several probate courts by means of a rare original petition seeking a writ of mandamus issued by this Court.” He also stated in his dissenting opinion that:

“In order to grant relief to the petitioners, this Court will have to conclude that a probate court is forbidden from following an Alabama federal district court's ruling on the constitutionality of the ministerial acts a probate court performs, which ruling both a federal appellate court and the Supreme Court of the United States have refused to stay pending appeal. In my view, the petition does not provide an adequate foundation for reaching such a conclusion.”

Neither the order nor the dissenting opinions expressed an opinion regarding the constitutionality of Alabama’s prohibition on same-sex marriage. According to this report by Kelsey Stein, Chief Justice Moore in a recent interview “declined to comment further on Granade’s decision because there is a case filed before the Alabama Supreme Court regarding the same issues.”

 

 

 

Ohio Supreme Court Decision on Standing & Jurisdiction

I have a guest post over at Legally Speaking Ohio about an interesting Ohio Supreme Court case on standing and jurisdiction. The decision is Bank of America v. Kuchta, which Marianna Bettman aptly called “a field day for civil procedure geeks.”

 

 

Standing & SCOTUS

A couple of interesting posts this week about standing issues in some high-profile pending and perhaps-soon-to-be-once-again-pending Supreme Court cases:

• Richard Re, Is Fisher v. University of Texas a Precedent on Jurisdiction? (Re’s Judicata)
• Will Baude, The standing problem in Zivotofsky, revisited (Volokh Conspiracy)

 

 

Standing, Subject Matter Jurisdiction, and Rule 60(b)

The Supreme Court of Ohio issued an interesting decision last week involving standing, subject matter jurisdiction, and whether they can be challenged via Ohio Rule 60(b) after the opportunity for a direct appeal has passed. The case is Bank of America, N.A. v. Kutcha.

Marianna Bettman has an analysis of the opinion, calling it a “Field Day for Civil Procedure Geeks.”

 

 

Article III Standing and Yesterday's ACA Decisions (Halbig & King)

By now most folks have seen yesterday’s conflicting rulings over whether the Affordable Care Act authorizes subsidies for individuals who purchase insurance on a federal exchange (as opposed to exchanges run by the states). The D.C. Circuit found that such subsidies were not statutorily authorized (the Halbig case). And an hour later, the Fourth Circuit found that the subsidies were statutorily authorized (the King case).

The merits of these decisions, as a practical matter and in terms of statutory interpretation, have received tremendous attention. But Article III standing was also an issue in both Halbig and King. Who, after all, suffers the constitutionally required “injury in fact” by virtue of receiving a subsidy? The answer: People who would be subject to the individual mandate if they are entitled to the subsidy but would not be subject to the individual mandate (on income grounds) without the subsidy. Here’s how the Halbig majority explained it with respect to one of the plaintiffs in that case, David Klemencic:

Klemencic resides in West Virginia, a state that did not establish its own Exchange, and expects to earn approximately $20,000 this year. He avers that he does not wish to purchase health insurance and that, but for federal credits, he would be exempt from the individual mandate because the unsubsidized cost of coverage would exceed eight percent of his income. The availability of credits on West Virginia’s federal Exchange therefore confronts Klemencic with a choice he’d rather avoid: purchase health insurance at a subsidized cost of less than $21 per year or pay a somewhat greater tax penalty.

The D.C. Circuit found that this was sufficient for purposes of Article III standing, and the Fourth Circuit reached the same conclusion. From the Halbig majority opinion (footnote omitted):

The government characterizes Klemencic’s injury as purely ideological and hence neither concrete nor particularized. But, although Klemencic admits to being at least partly motivated by opposition to “government handouts,” he has established that, by making subsidies available in West Virginia, the IRS Rule will have quantifiable economic consequences particular to him. See Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138, 1147 (2013) (explaining that a “threatened injury” that is “certainly impending” may “constitute injury in fact” (emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted)). Those consequences may be small, but even an “‘identifiable trifle’” of harm may establish standing. Chevron Natural Gas v. FERC, 199 F. App’x 2, 4 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures, 412 U.S. 669, 689 n.14 (1973)); see Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 581-82 (1983) (noting that Bob Jones University sued for a tax refund of $21.00). Klemencic thus satisfies the requirement of establishing an injury in fact, and because that injury is traceable to the IRS Rule and redressable through a judicial decision invalidating the rule, we find that he has standing to challenge the rule.

And from the King opinion:

We agree that this represents a concrete economic injury that is directly traceable to the IRS Rule. The IRS Rule forces the plaintiffs to purchase a product they otherwise would not, at an expense to them, or to pay the tax penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate, also subjecting them to some financial cost. Although it is counterintuitive, the tax credits, working in tandem with the Act’s individual mandate, impose a financial burden on the plaintiffs.

The defendants’ argument against standing is premised on the claim that the plaintiffs want to purchase “catastrophic” insurance coverage, which in some cases is more expensive than subsidized comprehensive coverage required by the Act. The defendants thus claim that the plaintiffs have acknowledged they would actually expend more money on a separate policy even if they were eligible for the credits. Regardless of the viability of this argument, it rests on an incorrect premise. The defendants misread the plaintiffs’ complaint, which, while mentioning the possibility that several of the plaintiffs wish to purchase catastrophic coverage, also clearly alleges that each plaintiff does not want to buy comprehensive, ACA-compliant coverage and is harmed by having to do so or pay a penalty. The harm in this case is having to choose between ACA-compliant coverage and the penalty, both of which represent a financial cost to the plaintiffs. That harm is actual or imminent, and is directly traceable to the IRS Rule.

 

 

Another SCOTUS "Statement" on Class Actions (While Denying Cert.)

Earlier this month we covered Chief Justice Roberts’ statement in Marek v. Lane, a case challenging a class action settlement that included cy pres remedies. In his statement, Chief Justice Roberts agreed with the decision to deny certiorari but raised a number of concerns about cy pres remedies, concluding that “[i]n a suitable case, this Court may need to clarify the limits on the use of such remedies.”

Today, Justice Alito issued a similar statement “respecting the denial of the petition for writ of certiorari” in another case involving a class action settlement: Martin v. Blessing (No. 13-169). You can find his six-page statement in today’s order list, beginning on page 13 of the pdf file. It begins:

The petition in this case challenges a highly unusual practice followed by one District Court Judge in assessing the adequacy of counsel in class actions. This judge insists that class counsel “ensure that the lawyers staffed on the case fairly reflect the class composition in terms of relevant race and gender metrics.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a. The uniqueness of this practice weighs against review by this Court, but the meaning of the Court’s denial of the petition should not be misunderstood.

The judge is U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York, and Justice Alito writes that “[b]ased on the materials now before us, I am hard-pressed to see any ground on which Judge Baer’s practice can be defended.” [p.3]

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SCOTUS Decisions in Same-Sex Marriage Cases: Lots on Article III and Standing

This week the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decisions in Windsor v. United States (on the federal Defense of Marriage Act) and Hollingsworth v. Perry (on California’s Prop. 8). Both cases presented significant questions with respect to Article III jurisdiction and standing, which were excellently summarized earlier this year by Marty Lederman’s seven-part series for SCOTUSblog.

In Windsor, a five-Justice majority opinion authored by Justice Kennedy (joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) found that Article III jurisdiction was proper and that the Court should not invoke prudential grounds to refrain from exercising jurisdiction; the majority then concluded that DOMA was unconstitutional.

In Perry, a five-Justice majority opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts concluded that the intervenors who supported Proposition 8 lacked Article III standing to challenge the district court’s order declaring Prop. 8 unconstitutional and enjoining California officials from enforcing it. Perry was a particularly interesting 5-4 split: The Chief was joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. Justice Kennedy dissented, joined by Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor.

From a jurisdictional standpoint, one crucial difference was that in Windsor, the federal government enforced DOMA (by denying Windsor the requested refund) and then proceeded to seek review of both the district court and appellate court rulings that DOMA was unconstitutional. As Kennedy puts it: “It would be a different case if the Executive had taken the further step of paying Windsor the refund to which she was entitled under the District Court’s ruling.” In Perry, on the other hand, the California government did not appeal the district court’s order and injunction. Perhaps the standing inquiry in Perry would have come out differently if the California government had adopted a litigation strategy similar to the one the U.S. government took in Windsor.

For anyone counting heads, here’s how each Justice came down on the Article III issues in both cases:

• Kennedy, Alito and Sotomayor supported exercising jurisdiction in both Windsor and Perry. (Alito is somewhat unique as to Windsor, because he argued that the U.S. government “clearly is not a proper petitioner” given its position that DOMA was unconstitutional; he argued instead that jurisdiction was proper because the House of Representatives’ Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group had standing as intervenors.)
• Roberts and Scalia opposed exercising jurisdiction in both Windsor and Perry.
• Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan supported jurisdiction in Windsor and opposed jurisdiction in Perry.
• Thomas supported jurisdiction in Perry and opposed jurisdiction in Windsor.

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SCOTUS Oral Argument in U.S. v. Windsor

Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument in United States v. Windsor, the first of two cases on same-sex marriage. The transcript and audio are available on the Supreme Court’s website.

As covered earlier (e.g., here, here, and here), Windsor presents some interesting issues relating to jurisdiction and Article III standing, to which the Court devoted the first half (almost an hour's worth) of the oral argument . 

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SCOTUS Oral Argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry

Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the first of two cases on same-sex marriage. The argument transcript and audio are available on the Supreme Court’s website.

As covered earlier (e.g., here, here, and here), the case presents some interesting Article III standing issues, which received a good amount of attention during the argument.

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Goldberg on Article III standing in the SCOTUS same-sex marriage cases (Perry and Windsor)

The University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online has a featured essay by Suzanne B. Goldberg (Columbia) entitled Article III Double-Dipping: Proposition 8's Sponsors, BLAG, and the Government's Interest. It begins:

A major procedural question looms over the two marriage cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court: Do the parties who seek to defend the marriage-recognition bans have standing to advance their views? The question arises because the governments that would have Article III standing, by virtue of their enforcement authority, are not defending their own laws. Instead, in Hollingsworth v. Perry, private parties are attempting to take up the state government’s mantle to defend Proposition 8, which withdrew marriage rights from same-sex couples in California. And in United States v. Windsor, five members of the House of Representatives leadership seek to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act in the name of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group. Not only are these parties not clearly authorized by the appropriate legislative bodies to pursue such actions, but there are two more fundamental difficulties with the Perry petitioners’ and BLAG’s claims to standing. First, each presents the Article III double-dipping problem to which this Essay’s title refers. The problem arises because there are parties asserting the government’s interest and, therefore, the government’s standing, on both sides of each case. The second problem arises from the premise, essential to the standing claims of both the Perry petitioners and BLAG, that governments can confer their Article III standing on private actors and subsets of legislators. The difficulty is that the government’s standing derives from its interest in enforcing its laws, which is not an interest shared by either group. In this essay, I argue that both the double-dipping problem and the limits on a government’s ability to transfer its standing to private actors in this context leave Proposition 8’s sponsors and BLAG without Article III standing to press their positions. Nor can either group of would-be defenders demonstrate the “concrete and particularized” stake it would need to have standing in its own right rather than on the government’s behalf. In short, neither party can answer the Supreme Court’s question in the affirmative.

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More Coverage of Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l

Here are links to some recent coverage of last week’s Supreme Court decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International, which rejected a challenge to federal wiretapping procedures for lack of Article III standing:

• Prof. Vik Amar (UC-Davis), via Justia.com
• Prof. Noah Feldman (Harvard), via Bloomberg

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SCOTUS Decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International: Article III Standing

Today the Supreme Court decided Clapper v. Amnesty International (No. 11-1025), covered earlier here. By a 5-to-4 vote, it found that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion (joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas) and Justice Breyer wrote the dissent (joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan).

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Lederman: Article III Standing in the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Cases

Over at SCOTUSblog, Prof. Marty Lederman (Georgetown) has a deep dive into the Article III standing issues in Hollingsworth v. Perry (docket no. 12-144) and United States v. Windsor (docket no. 12-307). Links to the entire series—Understanding standing: The Court’s Article III questions in the same-sex marriage cases—below:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Part VII

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Lederman: More on Article III Standing in the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Cases

Now on SCOTUSblog is a second post by Prof. Marty Lederman (Georgetown) on the Article III standing issues in Hollingsworth v. Perry (docket no. 12-144) and United States v. Windsor (docket no. 12-307). The post is entitled Understanding standing: The Court’s Article III questions in the same-sex marriage cases (II).

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Lederman on Article III Standing in the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Cases

Now on SCOTUSblog is the first of several posts by Prof. Marty Lederman (Georgetown) on the Article III standing issues in Hollingsworth v. Perry (docket no. 12-144) and United States v. Windsor (docket no. 12-307). The post is entitled Understanding standing: The Court’s Article III questions in the same-sex marriage cases (I).

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Even More on Article III Standing in Hollingsworth & Windsor

Discussion of the standing issues in SCOTUS’s two cases on same-sex marriage -- Hollingsworth v. Perry (no. 12-144) and United States v. Windsor (no. 12-307) -- continues:

• Walter Dellinger, No Harm, No Standing (Slate)
• Linda Greenhouse, Standing and Delivering (N.Y. Times)

Earlier coverage here and here.

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More on Standing & Jurisdictional Issues in the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Cases

Today the Supreme Court issued an order in United States v. Windsor (docket no. 12-307) appointing Prof. Vicki Jackson (Harvard) “to brief and argue this case, as amicus curiae, in support of the positions that the Executive Branch’s agreement with the court below that DOMA is unconstitutional deprives this Court of jurisdiction to decide this case, and that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the United States House of Representatives lacks Article III standing in this case.”

For more coverage, check out Lyle Denniston (SCOTUSblog).

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