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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Constitutionality Of Citizen Suit Provisions In Federal Environmental Statutes, Jeffrey G. Miller
The Constitutionality Of Citizen Suit Provisions In Federal Environmental Statutes, Jeffrey G. Miller
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court’s decisions under the pollution control statutes administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reach startlingly anti-environmental results, but they are explained more by the Court’s overwhelming hostility toward the private enforcement of statutes, rather than an anti-environmental bias. Adding insult to injury, in one of the rare victories for private environmental plaintiffs in those decisions, Justice Kennedy queried whether citizen suits intrude on the President’s Article II executive power and violate the separation of power principles. While other Justices have raised the same concern, Justice Kennedy’s invitation is particularly significant because he is a swing vote in …
Ideological Plaintiffs, Administrative Lawmaking, Standing And The Petition Clause, Karl S. Coplan
Ideological Plaintiffs, Administrative Lawmaking, Standing And The Petition Clause, Karl S. Coplan
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
In the 1992 Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife decision, Justice Scalia declared that business interests subject to regulation had automatic standing to challenge regulations in court, but that where “the plaintiff is not himself the object of the government action or inaction he challenges, standing is not precluded, but it is ordinarily ‘substantially more difficult’ to establish.” This article explores the impact this differential standard for court access has on ideologically-motivated public interest plaintiffs, and suggest heightened scrutiny of standing rules under the Petition Clause of the First Amendment based on the viewpoint differential effect of current standing doctrine. This …
Legal Standing For Animals And Advocates, David N. Cassuto
Legal Standing For Animals And Advocates, David N. Cassuto
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
For animal advocates, one of the most significant barriers to the courtroom is standing. In order to litigate on behalf of an animal's interests in federal court, the advocate must first establish standing by meeting three requirements: (1) the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact, (2) the injury must be causally connected to the act about which the plaintiff is complaining, and (3) the court must be able to redress the injury. When it comes to non-human animals, how does an advocate demonstrate an injury to establish standing? In this panel, experts in animal litigation discuss the concept …
The Law Of Words: Standing, Environment, And Other Contested Terms, David N. Cassuto
The Law Of Words: Standing, Environment, And Other Contested Terms, David N. Cassuto
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000), exposes fundamental incoherencies within environmental standing doctrine, even while it ostensibly makes standing easier to prove for plaintiffs in environmental citizen suits. According to Laidlaw, an environmental plaintiff needs only to show personal injury to satisfy Article III's standing requirement; she need not show that the alleged statutory violation actually harms the environment. This Article argues that Laidlaw's distinction between injury to the plaintiff and harm to the environment is nonsensical. Both the majority and dissent in Laidlaw incorrectly assume that there exists an objective …
The Standing Of Citizens To Enforce Against Violations Of Environmental Statutes In The United States, Jeffrey G. Miller
The Standing Of Citizens To Enforce Against Violations Of Environmental Statutes In The United States, Jeffrey G. Miller
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Judicial actions by private citizens have played a critical role in the development and enforcement of federal environmental law in the United States over several decades. The courts' general receptivity to the standing of private environmental plaintiffs has made that role possible. A troika of Supreme Court decisions on standing in environmental cases authored by Scalia J over the last decade had eroded that general receptivity, casting doubt on the continued vitality of private actions in developing and implementing environmental law. The Court's recent decision in Friends of the Earth Inc v Laidlaw Environmental Services halts this erosion. To explain …
"We The People": John Locke, Collective Constitutional Rights, And Standing To Challenge Government Action, Donald L. Doernberg
"We The People": John Locke, Collective Constitutional Rights, And Standing To Challenge Government Action, Donald L. Doernberg
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The Article is presented in three Parts. Part I documents the enormous effect that Locke's political philosophy had on the Constitution's Framers and traces the idea of collective rights through Locke's Second Treatise, showing how Locke viewed government as a trustee and society as the settlor-beneficiary that forms and gives legitimacy to the government. Part II reviews the development of the current doctrine of standing and demonstrates how the current standing model creates a class of cases where government may, with impunity, violate the Constitution. Part III demonstrates the anomaly of the Supreme Court's current doctrine in a society founded …