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Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
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| Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife |
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Supreme Court of the United States |
Argued December 3, 1991
Decided June 12, 1992
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| Full case name: |
Manuel Lujan, Jr., Secretary of the Interior, Petitioner v. Defenders of Wildlife, et al. |
| Citations: |
504 U.S. 555 (see more...); 112 S. Ct. 2130; 119 L. Ed. 2d 351; 60 U.S.L.W. 4495; 1992 U.S. LEXIS 3543; 34 ERC (BNA) 1785; 92 Cal. Daily Op. Service 4985; 92 Daily Journal DAR 7876; 92 Daily Journal DAR 8967; 22 ELR 20913; 6 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 374 |
| Prior history: |
Defendant's motion to dismiss granted, Defenders of Wildlife v. Hodel, 658 F.Supp. 43 (D. Minn. 1987); reversed and remanded, 851 F.2d 1035 (8th Cir. 1988); summary judgment granted to plaintiffs, 707 F. Supp. 1082 (D. Minn. 1988); affirmed, sub nom. Defenders of Wildlife v. Lujan, 911 F.2d 117 (8th Cir. 1988); cert. granted, 500 U.S. 915 (1991) |
| Subsequent history: |
None |
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| Holding |
| Plaintiffs did not have standing to bring suit under the Endangered Species Act, because the threat of a species's extinction alone did not establish an individual and nonspeculative private injury. Eighth Circuit reversed. |
| Court membership |
Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas |
| Case opinions |
Majority by: Scalia (parts I, II, III-A, IV)
Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas
Concurrence by: Scalia (part III-B)
Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Thomas
Concurrence by: Kennedy
Joined by: Souter
Concurrence by: Stevens
Dissent by: Blackmun
Joined by: O'Connor
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| Laws applied |
| U.S. Const. art. III; 16 U.S.C. § 1536 (§ 7 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973) |
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a group of wildlife conservation and other environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge regulations jointly issued by the U.S. Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce, regarding the geographic area to which a particular section of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 applied.
Said Lily Henning of the Legal Times:
- In [this] decision, hailed by the right and attacked by the left as well as by a broad swath of legal scholars, the Court made clear that plaintiffs must suffer a concrete, discernible injury—not a "conjectural or hypothetical one"—to be able to bring suit in federal court. It, in effect, made it more difficult for plaintiffs to challenge the actions of a government agency when the actions don't directly affect them. [1]
Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia stated that Defenders had failed to satisfy Constitutional requirements for “injury in fact” that would grant standing under the Endangered Species Act. He wrote that the Court rejected the view that the citizen suit provision of the statute conferred upon “all persons an abstract, self-contained, non-instrumental ‘right’ to have the Executive observe the procedures required by law”. Rather, he explained, the plaintiff must have suffered a tangible and particular harm, not unlike the requirement in common law.
Justice Scalia has subsequently asserted that a plane ticket to the affected geographic areas would have been enough to satisfy the imminent threat of future injury requirement of City of Los Angeles v. Lyons.
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