Disney was trying to build a ski resort in the pristine
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 20 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
action…is 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.
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.
