Craig v. Boren and Third Party Standing

Notice that Ms. Whitener, the saloon keeper, had a concrete injury in fact in her own right. She was governed by the drinking age law and suffered economic injuries as a result of having to turn away 18-20 year old male drinkers.

Her problem is not the lack of an injury; her problem is that she does not have a strong constitutional claim in her own right (maybe a losing Takings claim, or a loser-of-a-claim asserting some kind of right to make a profit from her business).

The strong claim is the Equal Protection claim of young men who are discriminated against under this drinking age law. But Ms. Whitener is not a young man who is the victim of gender-based discrimination.

Thus, she runs head on into the Third Party Standing rule, a prudential rule that holds that A does not have standing to assert the claims of B (i.e., "the plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.")

Ms. Whitener may be a good representative of saloon keepers and their interests, but she is not a very good representative of young men who are denied equal access to a Bud Light Coors Light!

What about June Medical Services v Russo on page 86? Normally, a fiduciary, such as a doctor or lawyer, has been allowed to assert the rights of his patients or clients. In June Medical, the Court ruled 5 to 4 that the abortion doctors had third-party standing to assert the (then) right to abortion under substantive due process.

However, in dissenting opinions Justice Thomas and Alito argued that third party standing should not have been allowed in this case. Justice Thomas argued that the "rule against third-party standing is constitutional, not prudential." What did he mean by this? Is the case or controversy standard satisfied by any concrete injury-in-fact? Or does it require a plaintiff to have a case or controversy related to each constitutional claim he is asserting?

Again, this is a dissent, but does Justice Thomas make a powerful point? Is an abortion doctor a good representative of the claims of his patients to a right to terminate a pregnancy?