"Standing"

I wrote this for the Speedway Town Talk, and I figured I'd post the un-edited version here:

I was approached recently[1] by a guy who “almost” hurt himself when slipping in a store, and another guy who was cut off by a truck driver “who could’ve killed someone.” Of course, in my line of work, the first question they asked me was whether they could bring a lawsuit.

                The answer is, generally[2], “No. You can’t.” My reason? “You don’t have standing.” The logical next question is, “What is standing? What does that mean?”

                Well, the answer is simple and infinitely complicated. Having standing means that you’re not asking the court to decide a hypothetical question. It means that you have actually been wronged and, at least assuming you can prove your allegations, are entitled to and can expect redress for your injury.

It means that the guy who almost hurt himself when he slipped in the store hasn’t been wronged and isn’t entitled to anything by the court; the guy who was cut off by the trucker wasn’t killed or hurt in any way . . . it’s not his fight. The doctrine of standing has nothing to do with the actual “merits” of the case. It doesn’t decide whether the store where the guy slipped was negligent; it doesn’t address whether the trucker was indeed driving like a maniac. It just asks whether there is an actual controversy to be decided by the courts.

                To have standing, one must generally demonstrate three things: (1) the Plaintiff suffered an “injury in fact,” i.e. a concrete, discernable injury, as opposed to a hypothetical or conjectural one; (2) the injury noted in element #1 is fairly traceable to some conduct of the defendant; and (3) a favorable judgment in court would fairly address the injury. See the late Justice Scalia’s opinion in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife if you are interested in more reading on the matter.

                As a fine (yet absurd) example, I can’t sue Satan (yes … the actual Prince of Darkness) for enticing Adam to eat the apple and thereby harming humanity, of which I am a member. Even if the Supreme Court of the U.S. sides with me, my injury is “non-justiciable.” There’s nothing they can do.

---

[1] Which is to say, “In my lifetime.”

[2] As always, this is not legal advice, as the world offers infinite circumstances that are open to interpretation.

I would like to point out that one of the reasons I write about standing is the overwhelming desire by so many people to insert themselves into a controversy even though it's not their controversy. I wrote recently about people trying to drive the new pet store in Speedway out of existence. It's not their controversy. I hear about people who want to do "something" about the way Zore's drivers drive. It's not your controversy.

Bottom line: if you don't have standing, then butt out.