Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump, No. 18-474 (2d Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseThis opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on September 13, 2019.
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18-474-cv Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Trump 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT August Term, 2018 (Argued: October 30, 2018 Decided: March 20, 2020) Docket No. 18 474 _____________________________________ Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, Inc., Jill Phaneuf, and Eric Goode, Plaintiffs Appellants, v. Donald J. Trump, in his official capacity as President of the United States of America, Defendant Appellee. _____________________________________ Before: JOHN M. WALKER, PIERRE N. LEVAL, Circuit Judges.1 DEEPAK GUPTA, Gupta Wessler PLLC, Washington, D.C. (Jonathan E. Taylor, Joshua Matz, and Daniel Townsend, Gupta Wessler PLLC, Washington, D.C.; Joseph M. Sellers, Daniel A. Small, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, 1 Judge Christopher F. Droney, who was originally part of the panel assigned to hear this case, retired from the Court effective January 1, 2020. The remaining two members of the panel are in agreement regarding this order. See 28 U.S.C. § 46(d); 2d Cir. IOP E(b). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Washington, D.C.; Norman L. Eisen, Stuart C. McPhail, Adam J. Rappaport, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Washington, D.C.; Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, on the brief), for Plaintiffs Appellants. HASHIM M. MOOPPAN, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., (Chad A. Readler, Michael S. Raab, Megan Barbero, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for Defendant Appellee. PER CURIAM: 17 It is hereby ORDERED that the chapter of the panel opinion of September 18 13, 2019 captioned “Zone of Interests” is amended by deleting the passage from 19 its fourth paragraph (beginning “The district court’s analysis erred on the 20 merits . . .”) to the end of the chapter. The chapter is further amended in the 21 first and second paragraphs so that they are consistent with the above deletion, 22 and at the end of the chapter by addition of a footnote acknowledging and 23 explaining the deletion. The chapter in amended form shall read as follows: 24 ii. Zone of Interests 25 The district court also erred in its reliance on the zone of 26 interests test as a basis for finding lack of jurisdiction. The 2 1 Supreme Court has recently clarified that the zone of interests test 2 is not a test of subject matter jurisdiction. In Lexmark Int’l Inc. v. 3 Static 4 acknowledging that past decisions had characterized the zone of 5 interests test as part of a “‘prudential’ branch of standing,” 6 reconsidered the question and clarified both that the “prudential” 7 label is a misnomer and that the test does not implicate Article III 8 standing. 572 U.S. 118, 126–27 (2014). Rather, the Court explained 9 that the test asks whether the plaintiff “has a cause of action under 10 the [law]” on the basis of the facts alleged. Id. at 128. The Court 11 emphasized that the test is not “jurisdictional” because “the 12 absence of a valid . . . cause of action does not implicate subject 13 matter jurisdiction.” Id. at 128 n.4 (internal quotation marks 14 omitted). In Bank of America v. City of Miami, 137 S.Ct. 1296 (2017), 15 the Court reaffirmed that the zone of interests test asks whether 16 the complaint states an actionable claim under a statute (and not 17 whether the plaintiff has standing and the court has subject matter 18 jurisdiction). The City of Miami majority reiterated that the Article Control Components, the 3 Supreme Court, while 1 III standing requirements are injury, causation, and redressability, 2 and reinforced Lexmark’s essential point that the zone of interests 3 question is “whether the statute grants the plaintiff the cause of 4 action that he asserts.” Id. at 1302. 5 Accordingly, while it had previously been appropriate to 6 consider whether plaintiffs fall within the zone of interests in 7 deciding whether a plaintiff has standing and the court has subject 8 matter jurisdiction, the Supreme Court has unambiguously 9 rejected that approach. The district court thus misconstrued the 10 nature of the zone of interests doctrine.FN 11 12 13 Footnote — The original published version of this opinion 14 contained, in this chapter, a discussion of the merits of the zone 15 of interests question. That discussion is deleted in order that it not 16 serve as a precedent on the question whether the Complaint states 17 a claim upon which relief may be granted. Because, under Lexmark, 18 the merits of the zone of interests question do not bear on the 19 court’s subject matter jurisdiction, that discussion had no 20 pertinence to whether the district court erred in granting the 21 President’s motion under Rule 12(b)(1). 4
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