Flast v. Cohen
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| Flast v. Cohen | ||||||||||||
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| Argued March 12, 1968 Decided June 10, 1968 |
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| 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, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron White, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Warren Concurrence by: Douglas Concurrence by: Stewart Concurrence by: Fortas Dissent by: Harlan |
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| 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.
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[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 satisfy 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 satisfied may the court have standing.
[edit] Flast Test
The Court developed a two-part test to determine whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue. First, because a taxpayer alleges injury only by virtue of his liability for taxes, the Court held that "a taxpayer will be a proper party to allege the unconstitutionality only of exercises of congressional power under the taxing and spending clause of Art. I, § 8, of the Constitution." *479 Id., at 102, 88 S.Ct., at 1954. Second, the Court required the taxpayer to "show that the challenged enactment exceeds specific constitutional limitations upon the exercise of the taxing and spending power and not simply that the enactment is generally beyond the powers delegated to Congress by Art. I, § 8." Id., at 102-103, 88 S.Ct., at 1954."
[edit] Ruling
The Court ruled that 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. However, the Court expressed "no view at all on the merits of appellants' claims in this case".
[edit] Concurring Opinion (William O. Douglas)
Justice Douglas advocated dealing with the seeming contradiction by overturning Frothingham completely.
