Standing (law) - United States

United States

In United States law, the Supreme Court of the United States has stated, "In essence the question of standing is whether the litigant is entitled to have the court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues."

There are a number of requirements that a plaintiff must establish to have standing before a federal court. Some are based on the case or controversy requirement of the judicial power of Article Three of the United States Constitution, § 2, cl.1. As stated there, "The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases . . . to Controversies . . ." The requirement that a plaintiff have standing to sue is a limit on the role of the judiciary and the law of Article III standing is built on the idea of separation of powers. Federal courts may exercise power only "in the last resort, and as a necessity".

The American doctrine of standing is assumed as having begun with the case of Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923). But, legal standing truly rests its first prudential origins in Fairchild v. Hughes, (1922) which was authored by Justice Brandeis. In Fairchild, a citizen sued the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to challenge the procedures by which the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. Prior to it the doctrine was that all persons had a right to pursue a private prosecution of a public right. Since then the doctrine has been embedded in judicial rules and some statutes.

In 2011, in Bond v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court held a criminal defendant has standing to challenge the federal statute that he or she is charged with violating as being unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment.