Justiciability Doctrines - Case Take Aways

Question 1

Opinion of the Justices

Answer 1

Justiciability: Prohibition of Advisory Opinions

Opinion of the Justices - Executive asked what a neutral state should do during French / English War

Denied

1. Issue of the separation of powers
2. Must be a substantial likelihood that the federal court opinion in favor of one claimant would bring about some change or have some effect
3. Judicial resources cannot be used for simply an abstract case

Question 2

Heyburn’s Case

Answer 2

Justiciability Doctrines: Prohibition of Advisory Opinions

Heyburn’s Case - Supreme Court asked to make recommendations regarding pensions

Denied

1. Not a judicial duty
2. Attempt to put the courts in an advisory role

Question 3

Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc.

Answer 3

Justiciability Doctrines: Prohibition of Advisory Opinions

Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc. - Statute required Court to retroactively nullify final judgments

By Congress commanding such cases to be reopened, the earlier judgments would be turned into advisory opinions without impact on the real world

Violation of the separation of powers - Unauthorized encroachment by Congress upon the powers of the judiciary

Question 4

Nashville, Chattanooga, & St. Louis Railway v. Wallace

Answer 4

Justiciability Doctrines: Prohibition of Advisory Opinions

Nashville, Chattanooga, & St. Louis Railway v. Wallace -Challenge that tax was unconstitutional

• Declaratory judgment concerning whether Tennessee tax on gasoline stored in the state, but used for interstate commerce, was unconstitutional.
• Declaratory Judgment’s are justiciable so long as the requirements are met

Question 5

Poe v. Ullman

Answer 5

Justiciability Doctrines: Ripeness

Poe v. Ullman - Declaratory Judgment Action – Judicial Review of contraception ban in Connecticut

• Hardship the plaintiff will suffer without the pre-enforcement review was not ripe for judicial review
  
  • Court must not only assess the degree of hardship in the absence of judicial review, but also the likelihood of injury
  • Connecticut has never attempted to fully prosecute any case under the statute.
• Degree of hardship is not enough
• History of enforcement is important

Question 6

Abbot Laboratories v. Garner

Answer 6

Justiciability Doctrines: Ripeness

Abbot Laboratories v. Garner - Declaratory Judgment Action – Requiring of brand & generic names printed on prescriptions

• Fitness: Parties agreed that the issue tendered was a purely legal one
  
  • The regulations in issue were reviewable as a “final agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act
• Hardship: The regulations would have a direct day-to-day impact on the operation of the companies, who either had to incur huge costs to comply with the regulations’ requirements or risk prosecution.
• Likelihood: Law was effective on publishing, so very high likelihood of hardship & not speculative

Question 7

Lake Carriers Assn. v. MacMullan

Answer 7

Justiciability Doctrines: Ripeness

Lake Carriers Assn. v. MacMullan - Prohibition of sewage discharge from boats, Pre-Enforcement Challenge

• Although enforcement was years away, it was inevitable that the law would be enforced and as a result, boat owners had to begin installing new facilities on their boats in anticipation
  
  • Courts have allowed the cases to move forward even when enforcement is steps away

Question 8

United Public Workers v. Mitchell

Answer 8

Justiciability: Ripeness

United Public Workers v. Mitchell

• Hatch Act of 1940 – Federal employees prohibited from active part in political campaigns or management
  
  • Not ripe for review because, a hypothetical threat is not enough
  • Assertions were too vague
• Later Challenge to the Hatch Act –
  
  • Court needed concrete information in order to issue a judicial resolution
  • Plaintiffs made specific intentions of what political activity they wanted to participate in, this was fit for judicial inquiry

Question 9

Moore v. Ogilvie

Answer 9

Justiciability Doctrines: Mootness

Moore v. Ogilvie - Law requiring signatures for candidate nomination for general election

• Election was over by the time the case was heard, but not moot
• Exception: “Wrong capable of repetition but evading review”
  
  • It was a structural problem, likely that any candidate would have the same problem, not that since the election is passed it could be corrected for the next election by starting earlier

Question 10

DeFunis v. Odegaard

Answer 10

Justiciability Doctrines: Mootness

DeFunis v. Odegaard - Bitchy kid denied law school admission

Moot - Could happen again, but he will never go through law school again and he will have graduated by the time it is complete

• No issue capable of repetition, to injure him, as he is concerned

Question 11

Friends of the Earth, Incorporated v. Laidlaw Environmental Services

Answer 11

Justiciability Doctrines: Mootness

Friends of the Earth, Incorporated v. Laidlaw Environmental Services - Pollution Permit Violators

• Defendant was violating mercury discharge limits of the Clean Water Act
• Defendant argues that the suit is moot either because it achieved substantial compliance with the permit guidelines by August 1992 or because of its shutdown of the facility in question.
  
  • Does not give legal certainty that the wrongful conduct will not reoccur
  • Only closed the facility in question after a loss in appellate court
    
    • Burden is high on the party asserting mootness, must be absolutely clear it will not occur again
• Exception - Voluntary Cessation

Question 12

United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty

Answer 12

Justiciability Doctrines: Mootness

United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty - Federal Inmate class certification denied

Exception – Class Action Suits

• The purpose of the “personal stake” requirement is “to assure that the case is in a form capable of judicial resolution.”
• The members of the proposed class still have a live controversy

Question 13

Baker v. Carr

Answer 13

Justiciability Doctrines: Political Questions

Factors:

• A textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department
• A lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving the question
• The impossibility of deciding the question without making an initial policy determination of a kind clearly inappropriate for judges to make
• The impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due to coordinate branches of the government
• An unusual need for questioning adherence to a political decision already made
• The potential embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question

Question 14

Allen v. Wright

Answer 14

Justiciability Doctrines: Standing

Allen v. Wright - IRS granting tax-exempt status to private racially segregate schools

• Injury: Harm from supporting discriminatory schools & stigmatizing from segregation
  
  • Failed to show evidence of the direct injury
  • “Abstract stigma” is too speculative and hypothetical for standing
• Causation: Not traceable to the government, the link between the asserted injury and wrongful conduct cannot be too speculative
  
  • Speculative if the funding has an effect on the segregation policies of private schools
• Redressability: Not redressable
  
  • Violation of the Separation of Powers would be required
    
    • Judiciary cannot regulate the IRS, which is function of the executive branch

Question 15

Massachusetts v. E.P.A

Answer 15

Justiciability Doctrines: Standing

Massachusetts v. E.P.A (E.P.A is not enforcing the Clean Air Act, State has quasi-sovereign interest)

• Cause of Action: Massachusetts has given up sovereign rights as a member of the U.S. and the federal government has ordered the EPA to protect the state to the prescribed environmental standards
  
  • Congress recognizes the “concomitant” procedural right to challenge the rejection of its rulemaking petition as arbitrary & capricious
• Injury: Concrete injury of losing coastal property as the water rises
  
  • Does not need to be an exclusive injury
• Causation: Regulations effect global warming and there is a link between the failure to regulate and the rise in water levels
• Redressability: Regulate or provide a reason to not regulate
  
  • If the EPA regulates emissions from cars, that will help the issue of global warming in the State of Massachusetts.
  • Court decision does NOT have to provide complete relief; even incremental relief will satisfy the requirement

Question 16

City of Los Angeles v. Lyons

Answer 16

Justiciability Doctrines: Standing

City of Los Angeles v. Lyons - Unnecessary Chokehold Policy of the L.A.P.D.

• Past illegal conduct, by itself, is insufficient to establish an actual case or controversy for injunctive relief.
• Speculative Lyons would be placed in a chokehold again, therefore injunction would not clearly redress any potential injury
• New Application of Standing: Plaintiff must show injury, causation and redressability at the level of relief they seek
  
  • Relief must correspond with the injury or potential for injury in terms of an injunction
  • NEED TO PERFORM STANDING ANALYSIS FOR EACH ISSUE & SEPARATE REMEDY

Question 17

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

Answer 17

Justiciability Doctrines: Standing

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife - Mr. Secretary of State, you must enforce the ESA internationally

• Plaintiffs failed to establish injury in fact or redressability
  
  • Did not have any concrete plans to view the animals in question, injury not imminent
  • Too speculative to claim that not enforcing an injunction on the Secretary would result in an injury in fact to any of the Plaintiffs.
• ESA does not create any substantive rights that private individuals enjoy, just provides a procedural mechanism to sue
  
  • A cause of action does not confer a substantive right to sue
  • Question to ask is, Does the statute confer a substantive right?
    
    • Substantive Right
      o Right that you enjoy on a personal basis, e.g. the Fair Housing Act