Also known as: actual or imminent harms · injury in fact
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An element of the injury-in-fact requirement for Article III standing demanding that the asserted injury be concrete and particularized rather than conjectural or hypothetical.
Alan Ackerman stood on the platform when a package fell from a train and exploded. The blast knocked over a scale that struck him. Because a reasonable person would not have foreseen risk to a bystander like Alan from the dropped package, the defendant owed him no duty of care.
Alice Atkins received a receipt missing required truncation of her credit card number. She suffered no overcharge or data misuse. The formatting omission alone did not create a concrete or imminent risk of identity theft sufficient for injury in fact.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Massachusetts alleged that EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gases would cause rising sea levels that would inundate its coastal property. The state showed actual and imminent injury traceable to the agency's inaction and redressable by regulation.
Citizens for a Better Environment sued Steel Co. for failing to file required reports years earlier. The violations had ended and no ongoing or imminent harm remained. The requested penalties would not redress any concrete injury to the plaintiffs.
The City of New York lost federal funding after the President canceled a statutory provision under the Line Item Veto Act. The cancellation produced an actual and imminent budgetary injury that the city could trace to the statute and redress by invalidation.
Americans United objected to a federal land transfer to a religious college. The group asserted only an abstract interest in preventing establishment clause violations without showing any particularized or imminent harm to its members.
The injury must be concrete and particularized to the plaintiff with a realistic threat of harm rather than a bare statutory violation or abstract interest shared by the public. Courts reject standing when the alleged risk depends on speculation about future events that may never occur.
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No. A bare procedural violation without any real risk of harm to the plaintiff fails to establish injury in fact. The plaintiff must show that the violation creates a material and imminent threat of concrete injury.
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Yes. Aesthetic, environmental, or other noneconomic injuries can satisfy the requirement when they are concrete, particularized, and causally linked to the challenged action.
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A plaintiff must demonstrate a sufficiently realistic threat that the government will enforce the challenged rule in a harmful manner. Tentative policy statements or unenforced statutes without credible enforcement risk remain nonjusticiable.
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…late-created "special permit" procedure before his takings claim can be considered ripe. Lucas has properly alleged Article III injury in fact in this case, with respect to both the pre-1990 and post-1990 constraints placed on the use of his parcels by the Beachfront Management Act. That there is a discretionary "special permit"…