Justiciability

Question 1

What does a case need to be heard and resolved by the court?

Answer 1

Federal question

diversity of citizenship

Question 2

What is Standing?

Answer 2

Kanata litigant bring that particular claim/issue before the court; who can bring the case?

Question 3

What are the two types of standing?

Answer 3

1. Constitutional – injury, causation, redressability
2. Prudential – prudent (wise), the right thing to do, but not necessarily rooted in the Constitution, an extra requirement the court puts on itself to limit what cases they take; can be changed by the court.
   – Third-party
   – taxpayer
   – no generalized grievances

Question 4

What are the requirements for standing?

Answer 4

Must be harmed, and a concrete and imminent way, harm has to be caused by the agency, and if you win, your heart needs to be addressed.

Injury in fact – concrete and particularized, and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical

causation – defendant’s actions caused the harm.

Redressability – court’s ruling must be able to correct/fix the harm to the plaintiff
Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation

Question 5

What is the standing requirements for a State?

Answer 5

State has a lower spending requirement, imminent and concrete injury not always necessary. Mass. v. EPA

Question 6

What are the requirements for organizational standing?

Answer 6

1. At least one of the organizations members must have standing to sue in her own right
2. The interests the organization seeks to protect our germane to its purpose
3. Neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.
   
   • Court cannot adjudicate each plaintiff separately, all relief must be the same for all individuals.
     (Allen v. Wright)

Question 7

City of Los Angeles v. Lyons

Answer 7

Lyons pulled over for a nonworking taillights, placed in a choke hold, causing him to blackout and have other injuries.

No standing to request an injunction. Unlikely he will be pulled over for a minor infraction and be subject to a chokehold even without resisting.
No proof of certain future harm from the police

Question 8

What is required for third-party standing?

Answer 8

1. There is a close relationship between plaintiffs and injured third parties, and
2. The plaintiff is unlikely to sue on her own behalf due to obstacles.

Question 9

What is ripeness?

Answer 9

Involves situations with the dispute is insufficiently developed and is instead a too remote or speculative to warrant judicial action.

Question 10

When is a case not right?

Answer 10

1. When the case is brought to soon, or

2. When the parties have not yet reached a concrete confrontation.

Question 11

What was the old ripeness doctrine under Poe v. Ullman?

Answer 11

Parties had to violate a law and be prosecuted, before the case was considered ripe for review. no pre-enforcement review.

court finds no hardship because there’s been no enforcement by the government. “Harmless and empty shadows.”

( Ban on contraceptives)

Question 12

Abbott Laboratories v. Gardener

Answer 12

Statues required generic name must be printed on labels of all drugs requiring drug companies to change their labels, advertisements, and more.

Court overruled Poe and allowed pre-enforcement review of the law in certain circumstances.

Question 13

What is the two-part test laid out in Abbott Laboratories?

Answer 13

• Fitness - how helpful it is to the court to decide to review the action now, or helpful to decide it later.
○ Whether the issues tendered are appropriate for judicial resolution (Toilet Goods)
- Looks at the record to establish facts (final agency action)
○ “It’s a legal issue” suitable for the court to decide.
- Record/facts not required
• Hardship to the parties for holding review
○ What would the parties suffer, compliance vs. non-compliance
- What would happen if you comply with the regulation, and what would happen if you do not?
○ Abbott labs will have to incur significant cost to reprint new labels if the court does not rule now. Civil and criminal sanctions if they break the law, plus bad press for illegal distribution of incorrectly labeled drugs.

Question 14

When do you argue for Abbott Labs or Poe?

Answer 14

To argue for hardship, use Abbott labs.

To argue for no hardship, use Poe.

Question 15

What is Mootness?

Answer 15

Occurs when the litigants who clearly had standing to sue at the outset of litigation are deprived of a concrete stake in the outcome by changes in the fax or law occurring after the lawsuit has gotten underway.

Changing circumstances after the initiation of the lawsuit have ended the controversy.
The court no longer confronts a lively dispute.

Defunis - Law student alleged racial discrimination. Case moot because he was in his third year when the case got to SCOTUS.

Question 16

What are some ways a case can become moot?

Answer 16

Settled
death of one of the parties (in some circumstances)
law challenged has been repealed or expired

Question 17

What is the constitutional doctrine of mootness?

Answer 17

Grounded in the case or controversy doctrine (no more controversy)

Question 18

What are the exceptions under the Prudential doctrine of mootness?

Answer 18

1. Wrongs capable of repetition or evading review – can happen again, or the timeframe is too short to make it to the courts (example: abortion law – pregnancy is too short to be able to challenge an abortion law; election law)
2. Collateral consequences – ongoing injury (but not the first injury); example: convicted felons lose a lots of rights (like right to vote or own weapons)
3. Voluntary cessation – person causing the injury voluntarily chooses to stop the injury, but nothing preventing them from starting it again once the case is dropped.
4. class action – if the named plaintiff’s claim becomes moot, if someone else in the class has an injury, not moot