Also known as: citizen suit provision · citizen suits provision · citizen suits provisions · citizen suit · citizen suits
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Statutory authorizations that permit private individuals to initiate enforcement actions for violations of public rights. These provisions typically allow suits for injunctive relief and penalties payable to the government even when the plaintiff has not suffered harm different in kind from the general public. They operate as an exception to the common-law requirement of special injury for public-nuisance abatement.
Christopher Collins, a frequent visitor to a wildlife refuge, sues a federal agency under a citizen-suit provision alleging that the agency failed to follow statutory consultation procedures. Collins alleges only that the procedural violation harms his interest in proper government administration and that he shares this interest with all citizens. The court dismisses the action because the asserted injury is not concrete and particularized.
Cobalt Energy discharges pollutants into interstate waters in violation of a federal permit. The state attorney general brings a common-law nuisance action, but Cobalt moves to dismiss on preemption grounds. The court holds that the federal statute's citizen-suit savings clause expressly preserves private enforcement rights, allowing a citizen plaintiff to proceed under the statutory provision even though the state common-law claim is displaced.
The petitioners are the City of Milwaukee, the Sewerage Commission of the City of Milwaukee, and the Metropolitan Sewerage Commission of the County of Milwaukee. These municipal corporations operate sewer systems and two sewage treatment plants on the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, serving an area of approximately 420 square miles with a population exceeding one million. The sewer systems are of both the separated and combined variety. On occasion, particularly after a spell of wet weather, overflows occur in the system which result in the discharge of sewage directly into Lake Michigan or tributaries leading into Lake Michigan. Respondent Illinois complains that these discharges, as well as the inadequate treatment of sewage at the two treatment plants, constitute a threat to the health of its citizens. Pathogens, disease-causing viruses and bacteria, are allegedly discharged into the lake with the overflows and inadequately treated sewage and then transported by lake currents to Illinois waters. Illinois also alleges that nutrients in the sewage accelerate the eutrophication, or aging, of the lake. Respondent Michigan intervened on this issue only. Illinois' claim was first brought to this Court when Illinois sought leave to file a complaint under our original jurisdiction. Illinois v. Milwaukee, supra. We declined to exercise original jurisdiction because the dispute was not between two States, and Illinois had available an action in federal district court. On May 19, 1972, Illinois filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeking abatement, under federal common law, of the public nuisance petitioners were allegedly creating by their discharges. Five months later Congress, recognizing that the Federal water pollution control program has been inadequate in every vital aspect, passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, Pub. L. 92-500, 86 Stat. 816. The Amendments established a new system of regulation under which it is illegal for anyone to discharge pollutants into the Nation's waters except pursuant to a permit. Petitioners operated their sewer systems and discharged effluent under permits issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which had duly qualified under § 402 (b) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1342 (b) (1976 ed. and Supp. III), as a permit-granting agency under the superintendence of the EPA. Petitioners did not fully comply with the requirements of the permits and, as contemplated by the Act, § 402 (b) (7), 33 U. S. C. § 1342 (b) (7), see Wis. Stat. Ann. § 147.29 (West 1974), the state agency brought an enforcement action in state court. On May 25, 1977, the state court entered a judgment requiring discharges from the treatment plants to meet the effluent limitations set forth in the permits and establishing a detailed timetable for the completion of planning and additional construction to control sewage overflows. Trial on Illinois' claim commenced on January 11, 1977. On July 29 the District Court rendered a decision finding that respondents had proved the existence of a nuisance under federal common law, both in the discharge of inadequately treated sewage from petitioners' plants and in the discharge of untreated sewage from sewer overflows. The court ordered petitioners to eliminate all overflows and to achieve specified effluent limitations on treated sewage. A judgment order entered on November 15 specified a construction timetable for the completion of detention facilities to eliminate overflows. Separated sewer overflows are to be completely eliminated by 1986; combined sewer overflows by 1989. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. 599 F. 2d 151. The court ruled that the 1972 Amendments had not pre-empted the federal common law of nuisance, but that in applying the federal common law of nuisance in a water pollution case, a court should not ignore the Act but should look to its policies and principles for guidance. The court reversed the District Court insofar as the effluent limitations it imposed on treated sewage were more stringent than those in the permits and applicable EPA regulations. The order to eliminate all overflows, however, and the construction schedule designed to achieve this goal, were upheld. We granted certiorari to consider the effect of this legislation on the previously recognized cause of action. 445 U. S. 926.
View caseNo. A citizen suit statute cannot create standing where the plaintiff lacks a concrete and particularized injury. Generalized grievances shared equally by all citizens, such as an interest in having the government follow the law, remain insufficient under Article III even when Congress has authorized citizen suits.
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A citizen suit provision supplies the independent statutory authority that permits a private plaintiff to seek abatement of a public nuisance without proving harm different in kind from that suffered by the general public. Absent such a provision or a certified class action, the plaintiff must still demonstrate special injury to proceed individually.
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Public officials or agencies authorized to represent the state or a political subdivision may seek injunctive relief without showing special injury. Private individuals may sue only if they suffer harm different in kind from the general public.
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…Act as a whole does not supplant formerly available federal common-law actions but only that the particular section authorizing citizen suits does not do so. No one, however, maintains that the citizen-suit provision pre-empts federal common law. We are thus not persuaded that § 505 (e) aids respondents in this case, even…