Palmer v. D.C.
Monday. Oct. 1st, the SAF files a supplement (doc #38) to its MSJ (doc #5). This was in response to the court asking about the standing of the SAF, in this case. Coincedently, this also comes on the heels of the decision in
Dearth.
Refreshing our memory, in
Dearth, the Judge opined that the SAF had no standing and was
estopped from persuing such by the district courts previous ruling, which it contends the Circuit Court did not disturb, when reading this excerpt from the Circuits decision:
Quote:
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“Nor because the SAF raises no issue not also raised by Dearth, need we decide whether it has standing.” Dearth, 641 F.3d at 503 n.*** (citation omitted).
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In
Palmer, Gura writes this:
Quote:
Last week, on remand, a court of this District held that “the Circuit did not disturb the trial court’s ruling that the SAF did not have standing.” Dearth v. Holder, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138697 at *9 n.4 (D.D.C. Sept. 27, 2012), appeal pending. That is not correct. The D.C. Circuit’s review was de novo. Dearth, 641 F.3d at 501. And the words “affirmed in part” do not appear in the D.C. Circuit’s opinion. The trial court’s order—all of it reviewed de novo—was reversed in its entirety, and the Court merely offered that it did not “need” to decide the issue of SAF’s standing in line with the clearly established rule of avoiding unnecessary standing decisions.
SAF will invite the D.C. Circuit to clarify whether it intended to affirm the denial of SAF’s standing without opinion. In the meantime, the posture of this case is that no decision on standing has been rendered save for the Court’s observation at argument that the individual plaintiffs have standing. Accordingly, in line with the substantial body of precedent, supra, confirming that there is no need to conduct an examination of SAF’s standing, the Court should not address the issue.
Should the Court nevertheless wish to address the issue, SAF clearly has both representational and organizational standing.
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Here we see that Gura is not only heading off the Standing issue in
Palmer, but also signalling a part of the appeal in
Dearth.
The docket is here:
http://www.archive.org/download/gov....87.docket.html
The supplemental filing is here:
http://www.archive.org/download/gov....37887.38.0.pdf