Also known as: citizen suit · citizens suit · citizens suits · citizen's suit · citizen enforcement action
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A statutory mechanism allowing private individuals to enforce compliance with federal laws by suing alleged violators or agencies in federal court. The mechanism requires plaintiffs to satisfy Article III standing by alleging a concrete and particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct and redressable by a favorable decision. Congress may authorize such suits but cannot eliminate the constitutional injury requirement.
Residents from several states led by Maria Lopez sued the National Climate Agency alleging its emissions policy would gradually worsen landscapes and weather everywhere. They asserted standing solely as citizens and nature enthusiasts without identifying any specific parcel or recreational site they used that would be imminently affected. The court dismissed the action because the asserted harm was shared equally by the public at large.
Citizens for a Better Environment sued Steel Co. under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act for failure to file past reports. The group sought only civil penalties payable to the government and had no ongoing violation to redress. The court held that the requested relief would not redress any injury to the plaintiffs themselves.
Citizens for a Better Environment, an association of individuals interested in environmental protection, sued Steel Company, a small manufacturing company located in Chicago, alleging that Steel Company had failed since 1988 to complete and submit the annual hazardous-chemical inventory forms and toxic-chemical release forms required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986. The forms must list the name and location of the facility, the name and quantity of each specified chemical on hand, the waste-disposal method employed, and the annual quantity of toxic chemicals released into each environmental medium, with inventory forms due each March 1 and release forms due each July 1. In 1995 the association sent the required 60-day notice to Steel Company, the EPA Administrator, and Illinois authorities, accurately alleging that Steel Company had never filed the required forms. Upon receiving the notice, Steel Company filed all of the overdue forms with the appropriate agencies. The EPA took no enforcement action, and after the waiting period expired the association filed its complaint in federal district court. The complaint, brought on behalf of the association and its members, sought a declaratory judgment that Steel Company had violated EPCRA, authorization for periodic inspections of Steel Company's facility and records at Steel Company's expense, an order compelling Steel Company to provide the association with copies of all compliance reports submitted to the EPA, civil penalties of $25,000 per day for each violation, and an award of the association's investigation and litigation costs including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees. The district court agreed with Steel Company on both points and dismissed the complaint. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict with the Sixth Circuit's decision in a factually indistinguishable case.
Taxpayer William Richardson sued to compel disclosure of CIA expenditures under the Statement and Account Clause. He alleged only that the public had a right to know how funds were spent and claimed no personal financial or other concrete harm. The court dismissed the suit as presenting a generalized grievance shared by all citizens.
Richardson, a United States taxpayer, brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado challenging the constitutionality of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. He alleged that the Act's provisions permitting the Agency to account for its expenditures solely on the certificate of the Director of Central Intelligence violate the Statement and Account Clause of Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution. Richardson claimed injury as a taxpayer because the challenged law prevented him from learning how Congress spends public money and from taking steps to correct what he believed to be illegal and unconstitutional uses of public funds. In 1967 Richardson wrote to the Government Printing Office requesting documents published by the Government in compliance with the constitutional clause. The Fiscal Service of the Bureau of Accounts of the Department of the Treasury replied by sending copies of the Combined Statement of Receipts, Expenditures, and Balances of the United States Government along with monthly and daily reports. Richardson then wrote again, quoting part of the CIA Act and asking whether the statute cast reflection upon the authenticity of the Treasury's Statement and how he could receive further information on CIA expenditures. The Bureau replied that it had no other available information. Richardson next asserted that the CIA Act was repugnant to the Constitution and requested that the Treasury Department seek an opinion of the Attorney General, but the Department declined. Richardson's complaint asked the court to issue a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from publishing their Combined Statement and representing it as the fulfillment of the constitutional mandate until the statement fully complies. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that Richardson lacked standing and that the claim presented a nonjusticiable political question. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that Richardson had standing as a taxpayer under Flast v. Cohen and that the claim was justiciable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Friends of the Earth sued Laidlaw Environmental Services alleging ongoing permit violations that impaired the use and enjoyment of a river by its members. Members submitted affidavits showing they lived near the river and would resume recreational activities once discharges ceased. The court found the affidavits sufficient to establish redressable injury supporting standing.
Laidlaw Environmental Services acquired a hazardous waste incinerator facility in Roebuck, South Carolina in 1986 that included a wastewater treatment plant. Shortly thereafter, it obtained an NPDES permit effective January 1, 1987 authorizing limited discharges of pollutants including mercury into the North Tyger River. Laidlaw repeatedly exceeded the permit limits, violating the mercury discharge limit on 489 occasions between 1987 and 1995. On April 10, 1992, Friends of the Earth and Citizens Local Environmental Action Network sent Laidlaw a 60-day notice letter of their intent to file a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act. On June 9, 1992, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control reached a settlement with Laidlaw requiring payment of a $100,000 civil penalty. On June 12, 1992, FOE filed its federal citizen suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief plus civil penalties. After a bench trial the District Court found the violations, imposed a $405,800 penalty, awarded litigation costs to FOE, and denied injunctive relief because Laidlaw had achieved substantial compliance since August 1992. The Fourth Circuit assumed without deciding that FOE initially had standing but held that the case had become moot because civil penalties payable to the government would not redress any injury FOE had suffered. The Supreme Court granted certiorari; after the Fourth Circuit decision but before argument the entire Roebuck facility was permanently closed, dismantled, and placed for sale with all discharges permanently ceased.
Massachusetts sued the EPA to compel regulation of motor vehicle emissions contributing to climate change. The state alleged that rising sea levels would imminently inundate its coastal property and that EPA's refusal to regulate caused that injury. The court held that the state's quasi-sovereign interest and particularized coastal harm satisfied standing requirements.
In October 1999, nineteen private organizations filed a rulemaking petition with the EPA requesting regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles under section 202 of the Clean Air Act. The petition asserted that carbon dioxide and other gases were heat-trapping greenhouse gases that had accelerated climate change, with carbon dioxide as the most important contributor according to the IPCC's 1995 report. The EPA received more than fifty thousand comments after requesting public input in 2001. A National Research Council report from 2001, prepared at the White House's request, stated that greenhouse gases from human activities were causing surface air temperatures to rise. On September 8, 2003, the EPA denied the petition on two grounds: the Clean Air Act did not authorize regulation of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles, and even assuming authority, the agency would not regulate due to scientific uncertainty about causation and concerns that regulation would conflict with the President's comprehensive approach involving voluntary programs and international negotiations. The denial order referenced Congress's decision in 1990 not to enact binding emissions limitations and the political history of climate change issues. Petitioners including the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and other states and private organizations then sought review in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit denied the petition for review in 2005. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2006 to address the issues raised by the denial. Massachusetts submitted affidavits showing that global sea levels rose 10 to 20 centimeters over the 20th century, already causing loss of coastal land owned by the Commonwealth, with projections of further inundation by 2100. The United States transportation sector alone emitted more than 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1999, accounting for over 6 percent of worldwide emissions.
Pennsylvania sued Union Gas under CERCLA to recover costs of cleaning up a hazardous waste site. The state alleged it had incurred concrete response costs traceable to the company's prior ownership. The court addressed whether the Eleventh Amendment barred the suit but confirmed that the state's direct financial injury satisfied standing for the citizen-suit provision.
For about 50 years, the predecessors of respondent Union Gas Co. operated a coal gasification plant near Brodhead Creek in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, which produced coal tar as a by-product. The plant was dismantled around 1950. A few years later, Pennsylvania took part in major flood-control efforts along the creek. In 1980, shortly after acquiring easements to the property along the creek, the Commonwealth struck a large deposit of coal tar while excavating the creek. The coal tar began to seep into the creek, and the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the tar was a hazardous substance and declared the site the Nation's first emergency Superfund site. Working together, Pennsylvania and the Federal Government cleaned up the area, and the Federal Government reimbursed the State for clean-up costs of $720,000. To recoup these costs, the United States sued Union Gas under §§ 104 and 106 of CERCLA, claiming that Union Gas was liable for such costs because the company and its predecessors had deposited coal tar into the ground near Brodhead Creek. Union Gas filed a third-party complaint against Pennsylvania, asserting that the Commonwealth was responsible for at least a portion of the costs because it was an owner or operator of the hazardous-waste site. Its flood-control efforts had negligently caused or contributed to the release of the coal tar into the creek. The District Court dismissed the complaint, accepting Pennsylvania's claim that its Eleventh Amendment immunity barred the suit. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, finding no clear expression of congressional intent to hold States liable in monetary damages under CERCLA. While Union Gas' petition for certiorari was pending, Congress amended CERCLA by passing SARA. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals' opinion, and remanded for reconsideration in light of these amendments. On remand, the Court of Appeals held that the language of CERCLA, as amended, clearly rendered States liable for monetary damages and that Congress had the power to do so when legislating pursuant to the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, 485 U. S. 958 (1988), and affirmed.
No. Article III requires a concrete and particularized injury in fact even when a statute authorizes citizen suits. A bare interest in having the government follow the law is a generalized grievance that does not satisfy the injury requirement.
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…those limitations if, at the behest of Congress and in the absence of any showing of concrete injury, we were to entertain citizen suits to vindicate the public's nonconcrete interest in the proper administration of the laws. While it does not matter how many persons have been injured by the challenged action, the party…
…and common-law environmental claims. They are correct that plaintiffs likely could not obtain the relief they seek through citizen suits brought under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, or other environmental laws. But that argument misses the point. This
…Our opinion is not motivated, as Justice Stevens suggests, by the more specific separation-of-powers concern that this citizen's suit
…U. S. 267, 270." Flast v. Cohen , 392 U. S., at 131 (Harlan, J., dissenting). Unrestrained standing in federal taxpayer or citizen suits would create a remarkably illogical system of judicial supervision of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government. Randolph's proposed Council of Revision, which was repeatedly…
…color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . , subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the…
A generalized grievance is an injury shared in substantially equal measure by all citizens, such as concern that the government is not following the law. A particularized injury affects the plaintiff in a personal and individual way, such as imminent harm to property or recreational use the plaintiff actually enjoys.
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Yes, when the harm is concrete and particularized. A plaintiff who regularly uses a specific river and shows imminent degradation of that river from the defendant's conduct can establish injury in fact. Allegations of general worsening of landscapes or weather for everyone do not suffice.
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No. Noneconomic harms such as aesthetic or recreational injury qualify when they are concrete and particularized. The key defect in many citizen suits is lack of particularization rather than absence of monetary harm.
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No. A bare procedural violation without any real risk of harm to the plaintiff does not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement. The plaintiff must still demonstrate a concrete and particularized injury traceable to the violation.
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