Also known as: third party standing · third-party-standing · jus tertii
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A prudential exception to the general rule against asserting the rights of others that permits a litigant to raise constitutional claims on behalf of third parties when the litigant has a close relationship with those parties and the third parties face practical obstacles to asserting their own rights.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Lake Clinical, a nurses' association, sued River Bio to block a rule requiring public posting of names of nurses who criticize staffing levels. The nurses fear demotions or shift changes if identified. Lake Clinical asserts the members' First Amendment rights because forcing individual suits would trigger the very disclosure that chills association.
During jury selection in a criminal trial, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to remove jurors of a particular race. The defendant, who did not share that race, objected on equal protection grounds. The court permitted the defendant to assert the excluded jurors' rights because those jurors face practical barriers to vindicating their own claims.
A coalition of residents sued the city over an ordinance allowing police to disperse suspected gang members from public places. The plaintiffs were not themselves subject to dispersal orders but asserted the rights of individuals who would be chilled from public assembly. The court allowed the claim because the affected individuals faced obstacles to bringing suit themselves.
A contraceptive distributor challenged a state law restricting sales to unmarried persons. The distributor had no direct constitutional injury but raised the privacy rights of potential customers. The court permitted the claim because the distributor maintained a professional relationship with the third parties who could not easily litigate on their own.
A lead plaintiff in a class action over royalty underpayments sought to bind absent class members to the judgment. The defendant argued the representative could not assert the absent members' due process rights. The court allowed the representative to proceed because the absent members faced practical barriers to individual litigation.
An organization dedicated to church-state separation challenged a federal land transfer to a religious college. The group alleged injury to its members' taxpayer interests but identified no member who had suffered concrete harm. The court denied standing because the organization could not show that its members faced obstacles preventing them from suing individually.
An organization may assert third-party standing when its members face practical obstacles to suing individually, such as when disclosure of their identities would itself chill the rights at issue. The organization must also have a close relationship with the members and the claim must be germane to its purpose. Courts examine whether the obstacle is genuine rather than speculative.
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…between one who acted to protect the rights of a minority and the minority itself. Sedler, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii in the Supreme Court, 71 Yale L. J. 599, 631 (1962). And so here the relationship between Baird and those whose rights he seeks to assert is not simply that between a distributor and…
…none have done so. See Singleton, supra , at 113-114. Respondents may be correct that petitioner does not possess standing jus tertii
…contends that it does not matter whether the Salerno standard is federal law, since facial challenge is a species of third-party standing
…the relation between petitioner and the excluded jurors is as close as, if not closer than, those we have recognized to convey third-party standing
…532-535 (1997) (legislation under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment). See generally Fallon, As-Applied and Facial Challenges and Third-Party Standing
An anti-retaliation policy may weigh against standing if it shows that members can safely assert their rights individually. Courts look to concrete evidence of past discipline or the absence of such evidence. When members have already criticized policies publicly without reprisal, the claimed obstacle may be viewed as speculative.
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A criminal defendant may assert the equal protection rights of excluded jurors even without sharing their race. The relationship between defendant and jurors is sufficiently close, and excluded jurors face practical barriers such as small financial stakes and the burden of litigation. This exception allows the defendant to raise the claim.
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When the challenged rule itself requires disclosure of identities, that disclosure can create the precise practical obstacle justifying organizational standing. Members may reasonably fear retaliation, loss of income, or other harms that deter individual suits. Courts permit the organization to proceed when filing individually would replicate the constitutional injury.
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