Disney was trying to build a
ski resort in the Mineral King Valley, inside Sequoia National Forest.
They got a permit from the US Forest Service (USFS) to lease the property
for 30 years.
In addition, California
agreed to build a twenty mile highway right through the middle of Sequoia
National Park to get to the ski resort.
The Sierra Club objected to
the construction. They attempted to get the USFS to hold public hearings
on the proposed development, and when that failed, they sued for an
injunction.
The Sierra Club argued that
various aspects of the proposed development contravened Federal laws and regulations
governing the preservation of national parks, forests, and game refuges.
Sierra Club argued that they
had standing to sue because they
were a "membership corporation with a special interest in the
conservation and the sound maintenance of the national parks, game
refuges and forests of the country."
The Trial Court granted the
injunction. Disney appealed.
The Trial Court found that
Sierra Club had standing to sue,
and that they had "raised questions concerning possible excess of
statutory authority, sufficiently substantial and serious enough to
justify a preliminary injunction."
The Appellate Court reversed.
Sierra Club appealed.
The Appellate Court found
that Sierra Club had no standing
to sue.
The Appellate Court found
that there was, "no allegation in the complaint that members of the
Sierra Club would be affected by the actions of the respondents other
than the fact that the actions are personally displeasing to them."
The US Supreme Court affirmed.
The Sierra Club argued that
they had standing to sue under the Administrative Procedures Act (5 U.S.C. §702), which says that, "A person suffering
legal wrong because of agency actionÉis entitled to judicial review
thereof.
However, the US Supreme
Court found that Sierra Club had not suffered a 'legal wrong', and
instead just had a 'mere interest in the problem', and a mere interest,
no matter how longstanding the interest and no matter how qualified the
organization is in evaluating the problem, is not sufficient by itself to
render the organization adversely affected.
The Court felt that in
order to have standing, Sierra
Club would have to show that its members used the National Forest, and
that those uses would be specifically damaged by the construction of the
ski resort.
That's known as injury
in fact.
In a dissent it was argued
that the Mineral King Valley was an inanimate object and thus could not
sue by itself. If Sierra Club didn't have standing to sue, who would have
standing to protect the forest?
Corporations and ships have
a 'legal personality' that allows them to bring suits, why shouldn't a
national forest have the same ability?
Sierra Club was allowed to go
back and amend their complaint to try to show that they had standing. By the time they re-filed, the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) had passed, requiring Disney to write an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS).
The EIS found that there
would be severe impacts to the environment, and the project was
cancelled.
Since this case, the US
Supreme Court has articulated four requirements in order to have standing to sue. The plaintiff must allege that:
The challenged action will
cause the plaintiff some actual or threatened injury in fact,
The injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action,
The injury is redressable by judicial action, and
The injury is to an interest
arguably within the zone of interests
to be protected by the statute alleged to have been violated.
