Flast v. Cohen

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Flast v. Cohen

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 12, 1968
Decided June 10, 1968


Full case name:	Flast et al. v. Cohen, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare et al.

Citations:	392 U.S. 83; 88 S. Ct. 1942; 20 L. Ed. 2d 947; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1347

Prior history:	Dismissed for lack of standing, 267 F. Supp. 351 (1967); probable jurisdiction noted, 389 U.S. 895 (1967)

Holding

Taxpayers have standing to sue to prevent the disbursement of federal funds in contravention of the specific constitutional prohibition against government support of religion.

Court membership

Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall

Case opinions

Majority by: Warren
Concurrence by: Douglas
Concurrence by: Stewart
Concurrence by: Fortas
Dissent by: Harlan

Laws applied

U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 8, Art. III;

Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968)^[1], was a United States Supreme Court case holding that a taxpayer has standing to sue the government to prevent an unconstitutional use of taxpayer funds.

In 1923 the Supreme Court decided in Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923), that a taxpayer did not have "standing to sue the federal government to prevent expenditures if her only injury is an anticipated increase in taxes." In 1968 Florance Flast joined several others in filing suit against Wilbur Cohen, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, contending that spending funds on religious schools violated the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion. The district court denied standing, and the Supreme Court heard the appeal.

1 Majority Opinion (Chief Justice Earl Warren)
2 Concurring Opinion (William O. Douglas)
3 References
4 External link

[edit] Majority Opinion (Chief Justice Earl Warren)

Frothingham v. Mellon did not recognize a constitutional barrier against federal taxpayer lawsuits. Rather, it denied standing because the petitioner did not allege "a breach by Congress of the specific constitutional limitations imposed upon an exercise of the taxing and spending power." Because the purpose of standing is to avoid burdening the court with situations in which there is no real controversy, standing is used to ensure that the parties in the suit are properly adversarial, "not whether the issue itself is justiciable."

In Flast, Warren established a "double nexus" test which a taxpayer must satisy in order to have standing. First, he must "establish a logical link between [taxpayer] status and the type of legislative enactment attacked." Second, "the taxpayer must show the challenged enactment is generally beyond the powers delegated to Congress by Article I, Section 8." Only when both nexuses have been satisified may the court have standing.

The petitioners have satisfied both nexuses as their Constitutional challenge to the law is under Article I, Section 8, to spend for the general welfare as the expenditure is of a large sum of funds. Furthermore, the program violates the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.