Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
| Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife | |
|---|---|
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| Argued December 3, 1991 Decided June 7, 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 (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
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| 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) |
| Holding | |
| Plaintiffs did not have standing to bring suit under the Endangered Species Act, because the threat of a species' extinction alone did not establish an individual and nonspeculative private injury. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Scalia (Parts I, II, III-A, IV), joined by Rehnquist, White, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas |
| Plurality | Scalia (Part III-B), joined by Rehnquist, White, Thomas |
| Concurrence | Kennedy, joined by Souter |
| Concurrence | Stevens |
| Dissent | Blackmun, joined by O'Connor |
| 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 decided on June 12, 1992, in which the court held that a group of American 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. The case arose over issues of US funding of development projects in Aswan, Egypt and Mahaweli, Sri Lanka that could harm endangered species in the affected areas. The government declared that the act did not apply to projects outside of the United States and Defenders of Wildlife sued.
Said Lily Henning of the Legal Times:
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, an American citizen plaintiff must have suffered a tangible and particular harm.
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