2.7 When Can Someone Bring a Lawsuit?

Almost anyone can bring a lawsuit, but a court may not hear it for a number of reasons. There may be no case or controversy, there may be no law to support the plaintiff’s claim, or the case may be filed in the wrong court. Another reason may be that the plaintiff does not have standing.

Standing to Sue

Article III of the U.S. Constitution provides limits to federal judicial power. For some cases, the Supreme Court has decided that it has no power to adjudicate because there is no “case or controversy.” For example, perhaps the case has settled or the “real parties in interest” are not before the court. In such a case, a court might dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiff does not have “standing” to sue.

For example, suppose you see a sixteen-wheel moving van drive across your neighbor’s flower bed, destroying her beloved roses. You have enjoyed seeing her roses every summer, for years. She is forlorn and tells you that she is not going to raise roses there anymore. She also tells you that she has decided not to sue, because she has made the decision to never deal with lawyers. Incensed, you decide to sue on her behalf. But you will not have standing to sue because your person or property was not directly injured by the moving van. Standing means that only the person whose interests are directly affected has the legal right to sue.

Class Actions

Most lawsuits concern a dispute between two people or between a person and a company or other organization. But it can happen that someone injures more than one person at the same time. A driver who runs a red light may hit another car carrying one person or many people. If several people are injured in the same accident, they each have the right to sue the driver for the damage that he caused them. Could they sue as a group? Usually not, because the damages would probably not be the same for each person, and different facts would have to be proved at the trial. Plus, the driver of the car that was struck might have been partially to blame, so the defendant’s liability toward him might be different from his liability toward the passengers.

If, however, the potential plaintiffs were all injured in the same way and their injuries were identical, a single lawsuit might be a far more efficient way of determining liability and deciding financial responsibility than many individual lawsuits.

How could such a suit be brought? All the injured parties could hire the same lawyer, and she could present a common case. But with a group numbering more than a handful of people, it could become overwhelmingly complicated. So how could, say, a million stockholders who believed they were cheated by a corporation ever get together to sue?

Because of these types of situations, there is a legal procedure that permits one person or a small group of people to serve as representatives for all others. This is the class action. In general anyone can file a class action in an appropriate case, subject to approval of the court. Once the class is “certified,” or judged to be a legally adequate group with common injuries, the lawyers for the named plaintiffs become, in effect, lawyers for the entire class.

Usually a person who doesn’t want to be in the class can decide to leave. If she does, she will not be included in an eventual judgment or settlement. But a potential plaintiff who is included in the class cannot, after a final judgment is awarded, seek to relitigate the issue if she is dissatisfied with the outcome, even though she did not participate at all in the legal proceeding.