The Federal Judicial Power is provided for by Article 3 of the United States Constitution. In order for a case to come under the Federal Judiciary the plaintiff must have standing, the case or controversy must be ripe for review and the case cannot be moot, or stale. Further, the Federal Judiciary will not accept political questions.
STANDING
The Standing requirement determines whether or not the Plaintiff is the proper party to bring a matter to court. To have standing there must be an injury, suffered personally by Plaintiff. A simple example of a personal injury occurs when a Product A produced by Company X results in Plaintiff losing an arm due to defective manufacture. Plaintiff B's personal injury is the loss of limb and will have standing to sue Company X.
In Serra Club v. Morton the Supreme Court held the injury not be be personal and thus Plaintiffs did not have standing. Disney wanted to build a resort near Sequoia National Park. The Sierra Club sued to halt construction on the resort because the resort would hinder their enjoyment of the national park. The Supreme Court held that there was no personal injury because no Sierra Club member had used the park previously.
A Plaintiff may also be awarded standing when seeking injunctive or declaratory relief but the potential Plaintiff must show that they have a likelihood of future harm. For example, if Company X began dumping toxic materials into the lake where Plaintiff regularly swam then Plaintiff may be able to show likelihood of harm. Plaintiff would have to show that the toxic materials would negatively effect the water and thus effect him negatively, even if over an extended period of time.
However, in City of LA v. Lyons the Court found that Plaintiff did not present a case for likelihood of future harm. Lyons was almost killed when a police officer used a "death choke hold" to subdue him. Lyons, an African American found that 16 other African American men had actually died as a result of the police department's using "death choke holds" to subdue them. Lyons sought injunctive relief so that the LAPD would not be able to use the holds any longer. The Court held that Lyons could not prove a likelihood of future harm so the injunction was not awarded.
CAUSATION AND REDRESSABILITY
The Plaintiff must allege and prove that defendant caused the injury so that a favorable court decision is likely to remedy the harm. This requirement is referred to as causation and redressability. Thus, not only must Plaintiff show that the Defendant caused the injury, or at least that the Defendant might have caused the injury, and if so, that judicating the case may potentially result in some sort of redemption for Plaintiff from Defendant.
NO THIRD PARTY STANDING
In general, a Plaintiff cannot assert claims of others, of third parties who are not before the court because this Plaintiff would fail the "personally suffered injury" requirement. However, this rule has exceptions. Third party standing is allowed if there is a close relationship between the plaintiff and the injured third party and thus the Plaintiff can be trusted to adequately represent the interests of the injured party.
A close relationship has been found in cases where Plaintiff represents his child. For instance, in the lake example above, Plaintiff could sue Company X for dumping in a lake where Plaintiff's child regularly swam on behalf of his children, especially if the toxic substances caused an actual injury to the child. However, if the child's parents are divorced and the mother has custody, the father as a non-custodial parent would not have standing to sue.
Third party standing is also allowed if the injured third party is unlikely to go to court themselves. For instance: If Prosecutor uses a peremptory challenge, method by which to strike a juror for no reason, to keep Juror A off of a jury and the Defendant believes that the Prosecutor struck the juror because the juror is the same race as Defendant, then Defendant may sue using a Batson Challenge. This action is allowed for the sake of justice because almost no one would sue to be on a jury, but the Defendant's right to a fairly picked jury are on the line.
Another exception allows an organization to sue for its members if the interests are germane, relevant, to the organization's purpose. This exception does not necessitate that the claim or relief require participation of individual members. An example here would be some kind of Constitutional rights issue, like if a member of a women's rights organization sued on behalf of its members to challenge a bill that eliminated legal abortion.
NO GENERALIZED GRIEVANCES
The plaintiff must not be suing solely as a citizen or taxpayer interested in having the government follow the law. Basically, we as private citizens may not sue the government just to make it do its job. Maybe we should be able to but this would create an incredible courtroom clog, backing the dockets up for years.
Taxpayers do have standing, though, to challenge the government expenditures pursuant to federal statutes that violate the Establishment Clause, separating Church and State. If a county courthouse has a manger scene during the Christmas season then members of that community may sue to either have the manger scene removed or to require the county to balance the holiday decorations with scenes from Santa's workshop.
A person also has standing as a citizen to allege that a federal action violates the 10th Amendment by interfering with the powers reserved to the states as long as the person can show injury in fact and redressability. The 10th Amendment provides that any powers not given to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states will be implied as granted to the states. Thus, if the federal government tries to take one of these unexplained powers, then a citizen may sue to ensure that the power remains with the state and not the federal government.
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