Standing Hypo--Duncan vs Lincoln Police Department

 Let’s try to get a feel for standing.

Suppose I read in the newspaper that the Lincoln police department has an affirmative action plan which provides different passing scores on the sergeant’s exam for whites and blacks.  The passing score for whites is 70 and for blacks 65.  The purpose of the plan is to promote people from under-represented groups.  I sue the Lincoln police department claiming that this classification scheme violates the equal protection clause by discriminating on the basis of race.  What result?

    Why don’t I have standing?  Could I make any arguments that I should be allowed to litigate this case?

 

Now consider these facts from a recent case from the 11th Circuit:

A federal law prohibiting unfair and misleading debt collection practices provides that “[a] debt collector may not use any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means in connection with the collection of any debt.”

The case involved two men who had been delinquent on debt for many years. A debt collector sent letters to the men, seeking to collect on the debt, and the men sued by alleging that the letters were misleading. The only problem? The men were not actually misled. They had merely received the letters but were not otherwise harmed.

So, what do you think? Do the plaintiffs have standing or no? What are the arguments that they do? That they do not? 

Now consider what the court said (some language from news report of case):

Trichell v. Midland Credit (11^th Cir. 2020)

Judge Katsas, writing for a 2–1 panel of judges, looked to the history of Article III of the Constitution, which governs the judicial branch. Hearkening back to the words of James Madison in 1787, Judge Katsas explained the Founders’ conception of the judiciary’s limited power. And rather than a dispute in which a plaintiff was complaining of some actual harm, the plaintiffs in this case were unharmed individuals “tak[ing] offense that a private party has violated” federal law — “an injury that is . . . abstract as opposed to concrete,” in Judge Katsas’s words.

In the end, Judge Katsas determined that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case in federal court, meaning that the Constitution does not authorize federal courts to hear such disputes:

 “The plaintiffs seek to recover for representations that they contend were misleading or unfair, but without proving even that they relied on the representations, much less that the reliance caused them any damages. By jettisoning the bedrock elements of reliance and damages, the plaintiffs assert claims with no relationship to harms traditionally remediable in American or English courts. This cuts against Article III standing, for the purpose of that doctrine is to confine courts to their ‘traditional role.’”

 The dissenting judge in the case argued that at least one of the plaintiffs had standing because he testified that although he was not actually misled into making a payment, the letter “enticed him to make a payment” due to its misleading statements. So he was enticed to rely, but did not actually rely.

Should that be enough?