Doctrine of Standing
Under the organic common law, the "Doctrine of Standing" requires that an entity seeking to bring suit to compel the government's enforcement of laws relating to the regulation of property use must prove that they have a "substantive"(property) interest at stake, hence the term "affected interest," (term found in laws regarding federal land grazing "permits.) Under the "Doctrine of Standing," the general public, majority or community interest at large may properly seek redress of generalized grievances through the legislative process directing the state as their representative, and not through the courts.
It has become popular for agencies to to cloth interests with no real substantive interest at stake with the appearance of standing by dubbing them a "stakeholder" or a "community of interest" and "giving them an official seat at the table" to affect policy and regulations. It is not uncommon for the actual private property owners (affected interests) to be excluded from "the table" or to presume that they are represented by some interest group.
In The Legal Environment of Business, (second Edition) by Edward J. Conry, Gerald R. Ferrerra and Karla H. Fox, (allyn and Bacon c.1990,) the Doctrine of Standing is explained:
"Any person who initiates an action in a court of law must have standing, and persons appealing from administrative decisions are no exception. Standing means that the person seeking court action must have a personal stake in the outcome of the case. This requirement grows out of a general constitutional requirement that courts hear only real cases and controversies. 'A stake in the outcome' has generally been interpreted to mean that the plaintiffs must show some injury in fact to themselves.
"In most cases involving judicial review, especially in cases of appeals from an adjudicatory order, it is no problem to show that personal rights are directly affected by the agency action. However, there are two important types of cases in which questions have arisen as to whether petitioner had standing to seek judicial review of agency action:
Suits in which the petitioners
base their standing solely on their status as taxpayers; and
Suits brought by a group having a
special interest in a particular agency's function."
The explanation goes on to state that the ruling in the 1968 case of Flast v. Cohen established that any taxpayer may be recognized as having status or standing if he can meet a two-part test:
That
the challenged federal action is based on the government's power to tax and spend for the
government's welfare; and
That the government's action is
challenged as contrary to a specific constitutional limitation.
Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972), established that a group of persons may have standing to challenge governmental action, if at least one member alleges and can prove a direct personal injury to himself. In Sierra Club, on the basis of a failure to establish personal injury, the Court denied the Sierra Club standing to sue for enforcement of federal environmental protection laws (on U.S. Forest Service managed lands) and to seek a permanent injunction from granting approval of permits for development of the Mineral King project.
Under the Doctrine of Standing, the plaintiff must have suffered an actual injury and possess a sufficient personal stake in the outcome of the case to litigate to the fullest extent. Plaintiff must show:
That they have suffered some
actual or threatened injury because of the illegal conduct of the defendant;
That the injury can be fairly
traced to the defendant's action; and
That the injury is likely to be
redressed by a favorable court decision.
In such a manner, the common law guarantees due process and provides protections of individual civil liberties from third party interference in the right to exercise ownership in property or the full use and enjoyment of that property.
