Plaintiffs Can’t Challenge Supposed Disinformation by Government Agency, Unless It Affected Them Specially
From yesterday’s opinion in Ohio Stands Up! v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., decided today by the Sixth Circuit (Judge Alice Batchelder, joined by Judges Eric Clay and Joan Larsen):
Kristen Beckman and Douglas Frank … alleged that … defendants knowingly and intentionally published misleading and fraudulent data that overstated the number of nationwide COVID-19 cases and deaths, in violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3501-3521, the Information Quality Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3516 (Policy and Procedural Guidelines), the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 500-706, and the “Implied Constitutional Duty of Honesty and Fair Dealing.”
[To show standing to sue in federal court,] “… a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” “For an injury to be ‘particularized,’ it must affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way.” A plaintiff who is “seeking relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large … does not state an Article III case or controversy.” “[A] grievance t
Article from Reason.com
