Page 236 - California Stormwater Workshop Handouts
P. 236
Ecological Rights Foundation v. Pacific Lumber Co., 230 F.3d 1141 (2000)
51 ERC 1545, 31 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,246, 00 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8692...
guidelines, as Laidlaw makes clear. would threaten the animals’ habitats. Although the
two women had visited these areas before, they had
2. Injury in Fact Under Laidlaw no specific plans to travel the huge distances
Before Laidlaw, the Supreme Court examined the “injury involved again. It was therefore entirely speculative,
in fact” requirement in environmental cases in detail in at best, and unlikely, at worst, that the AID’s actions
two cases. See Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560–61, would actually affect their future lives. 504 U.S. at
112 S.Ct. 2130 (affirming grant of summary judgment for 564, 112 S.Ct. 2130.
lack of standing because plaintiffs did not meet their
obligation under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e) to allege sufficiently [6] Laidlaw, on the other hand, involved a situation, like
specific facts demonstrating their use of the contested this one, in which the litigation was narrowly focused and
area); Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U.S. the *1149 plaintiffs’ allegations of injury quite specific.
871, 110 S.Ct. 3177, 111 L.Ed.2d 695 (1990) (denying In Laidlaw, several environmental organizations brought
standing because plaintiffs could show only “speculative a Clean Water Act citizen suit for injunctive relief and
‘someday’ intentions to visit endangered species halfway civil penalties alleging that Laidlaw Environmental
around the world”).7 The plaintiff organizations in Services was violating its NPDES permit at a hazardous
Defenders of Wildlife and National Wildlife Federation waste incinerator on the banks of South Carolina’s North
sought to litigate the validity of broadly applicable Tyger River. 120 S.Ct. at 701. Several of the plaintiff
environmental rulings. A few of their members made organizations’ members filed declarations detailing the
allegations concerning their connections to the extensive injury they had or would suffer because of suspected
areas covered by those rulings, but the averments pollution of the river. Of those members, some lived
supporting those allegations were either extremely vague within two miles of the incinerator, another lived 20 miles
(in National Wildlife Federation) or extremely speculative away, and still others did not specify where they lived.
(in Defenders of Wildlife). Because the plaintiffs in both Some of the members filing declarations said that they
Defenders of Wildlife and National Wildlife Federation had engaged in recreational activities on the river in the
failed to show any tangible, continuing connection to any past, while others were deterred from such activities by
particular location affected by the challenged decision, Laidlaw’s alleged discharges of pollutants. One affiant
they could not assure “that the legal questions presented claimed only that he “had canoed” on the river some 40
to the court will be resolved, not in the rarified miles downstream from the incinerator. Considering the
atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual standing question sua sponte,8 the Supreme Court held
context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the that all these individual members of the plaintiff
consequences of judicial action.” Valley Forge Christian organizations had stated injuries to their aesthetic and
College v. Americans United for Separation of Church recreational interests sufficiently specific to allow
and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 standing, because all of them “use the affected area and
L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). are persons ‘for whom the aesthetic and recreational
values of the area will be lessened’ by the challenged
7 More specifically: activity.” 120 S.Ct. at 705 (quoting Sierra Club, 405 U.S.
In Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, the Court at 735, 92 S.Ct. 1361).
denied standing to two environmental organizations
because their members attested only to taking part in 8 Pacific Lumber attempts to relegate Laidlaw’s standing
recreational activities “in the vicinity of” vast tracts analysis to a second- or third-class precedential rank
of land, small sections of which would be opened to because the Court raised the issue sua sponte. Standing,
mining by a challenged Bureau of Land Management it is true, was not one of the issues upon which
order. 497 U.S. at 886–89, 110 S.Ct. 3177. The certiorari was granted in Laidlaw. The Court explained,
plaintiffs’ declarations, that is, were too vague to however, why it addressed the standing question:
establish that any of their members had any “Because we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in
ascertainable aesthetic or recreational interest, past or declaring the case moot, we have an obligation to
future, in the exact areas affected by the challenged assure ourselves that [Friends of the Earth] had Article
environmental decision. III standing at the outset of the litigation.” 120 S.Ct. at
In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, two members of 704. The extensive standing discussion in Laidlaw was
Defenders of Wildlife averred that they had in the therefore necessary to the Court’s decision, and is
past visited the habitats of certain endangered species binding upon us. United States v. Underwood, 717 F.2d
halfway around the world, and were harmed by the 482, 486 (9th Cir.1983) (en banc). We are no more
Agency for International Development’s (AID) plans empowered to ignore a square holding of the Supreme
to help finance foreign development projects that Court because the decided issue was not an issue upon
© 2015 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. 8
