Follow on Google News News By Tag Industry News News By Place Country(s) Industry News
Follow on Google News | Obscure Doctrine and Poor Planning Save ObamacareAttorneys Often Pay Insufficient Attention to Legal Standing
The need to properly allege and establish all of the elements of legal standing is crucial to litigating major constitutional and other legal issues, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whose law students - in the famous U.S. v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures [SCRAP] Supreme Court case - overcame enormous obstacles to establish standing for ordinary citizens to challenge environmental harm, even if it affects virtually everyone living anywhere in the country. The law students did so following an earlier Supreme Court decision holding, in Sierra Club v. Morton, that the Sierra Club did not have standing to challenge impending environmental harm to Mineral King Valley in California' a ruling which triggered wide spread concerns about the ability to litigate environmental issues in court Banzhaf also established standing to force the attorney general to seek the appointment of an independent counsel, and administrative standing to challenge discrimination against women, Blacks, the deaf, Jews, and others. In teaching the law of standing to his law students, Banzhaf analyzes earlier cases in which the Supreme Court had dismissed legal challenges based upon a holding that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing. For example, Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welf. Rights. Org., several low-income individuals, and organizations representing them, challenged an IRS ruling which gave favorable tax treatment to hospitals even if they did not serve indigents to the extent of the hospitals' financial ability. Although some patients had in fact been denied care, the challenge was dismissed because the Court held that there was no standing. Prof. Banzhaf shows how better and more comprehensive pleading, a better selection of parties, and other legal tactics would likely have changed the outcome, and allowed low-income individuals and minorities to achieve legal redress, or at least had the Court address their underling substantive legal claims. He notes, for example, in the SCRAP case, the legal complaint contained several pages of allegations and arguments to support the law students unprecedented claim to have legal standing, and that they also had several additional backup legal strategies if those arguments were not successful. Plaintiffs' attorneys too often give short shrift to the issue of standing, and the results can be devastating. In the Obamacare case, he says, it's hard to believe that somewhere in the complex medical scheme there isn't at least one potential plaintiff with real harm fairly traceable to defendants' conduct. http://banzhaf.net/ End
Account Email Address Account Phone Number Disclaimer Report Abuse
|
|