Regan et al v. Otter et al

Filing 17

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER Defendants Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 9 ) is GRANTED, and Plaintiffs' Complaint is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Should Plaintiffs wish to file an amended complaint, it must be filed with the Court within 30 days after the docketing of this Order. Signed by Judge B. Lynn Winmill. (caused to be mailed to non Registered Participants at the addresses listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) by (jp)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO

BRENT F. REGAN, KAREN B.
MASHAK, JEREMY MORRIS, MARIE
DeKNIKKER, JASON ROBINSON,
KATIE DAVENPORT, LAILA
KAMMERMAN, WALTER TRUDO,
DANIEL MURDOCH, AND SHAWNA
MURDOCH,

Case No. 1:15-cv-00455-BLW

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND
ORDER

Plaintiffs,
vs.
C.L. “BUTCH” OTTER, Governor of the
State of Idaho, and SHERRI YBARRA,
Idaho Superintendent of Public
Instruction, and DON SOLTMAN,
President of the Idaho State Board of
Education,
Defendants.
INTRODUCTION
The Court has before it Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Standing and
for Failure to State a Claim. (Dkt. 9.) For the reasons below, the Court will grant
Defendants’ motion because Plaintiffs lack standing.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs are a class of Idaho taxpayers who seek to challenge Idaho’s
membership in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). Compl. ¶¶ 1, 8,
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16, Dkt. 1. SBAC is a consortium of states that have agreed to “build a flexible system of
[education] assessment based upon the Common Core Standards in English language arts
and mathematics with the intent that all students across this Consortium of States will
know their progress toward college and career readiness.” SBAC MOU at p. 2, Dkt. 1-1.
Idaho joined SBAC in June 2010. Compl. ¶ 2, Dkt. 1. To do so, Idaho was required to
adopt the Common Core Standards and modify statewide education curricula and
assessment methods. SBAC MOU at p. 3, Dkt. 1-1. Idaho was further required to pledge
funding contributions to SBAC in order to join. Compl. ¶ 54, Dkt. 1.
Plaintiffs contend SBAC is an unconstitutional interstate compact formed without
congressional authorization under Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution.
Id. ¶ 87. Plaintiffs allege Defendants fund Idaho’s SBAC membership with tax dollars.
Id. ¶¶ 89, 92, 95. They seek (1) a declaration that Idaho’s membership in SBAC is
unconstitutional; (2) to enjoin Defendants from making any disbursement of tax dollars to
SBAC; and (3) a declaration that Idaho’s adoption of the Common Core Standards
through SBAC violates parents’ constitutional right to determine the care, custody, and
control of their children. Id. ¶¶ 7, 113, 118, 121. Defendants now move to dismiss
Plaintiffs’ Complaint, arguing Plaintiffs lack standing and have failed to state a claim.
LEGAL STANDARD
“The exercise of judicial power under Art. III of the Constitution depends on the
existence of a case or controversy.” Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401 (1975). Article
III standing pertains to a federal court’s subject matter jurisdiction, and lack of standing
is properly raised in a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. (12)(b)(1). White v. Lee,
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227 F.3d 1214, 1242 (9th Cir. 2000). Where a motion to dismiss is based on lack of
standing, the Court must defer to the plaintiff’s factual allegations, and further must
presume “that general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to
support the claim.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992); see also
Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 889 (1990).
A three-part test governs whether a dispute presents a “case or controversy”
sufficient for Article III standing: (1) “the plaintiff must have suffered an ‘injury in
fact’—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized,
and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical”; (2) “there must be a causal
connection between the injury and the conduct complained of”; and (3) “it must be likely,
as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable
decision.” Doran v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 524 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting Lujan,
504 U.S. at 560-61 (internal quotation marks omitted)). The plaintiff bears the burden of
establishing standing. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561. In determining whether the plaintiff has
satisfied this burden, the Court must view the facts “as they exist[ed] at the time the
complaint was filed.” Jacobs v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 526 F.3d 419, 425 (9th Cir. 2008)
(quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61).
DISCUSSION
Defendants contend Plaintiffs lack standing because they sue only as Idaho
taxpayers. Payment of taxes, standing alone, is generally insufficient to establish Article
III standing to challenge government action. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S.
332, 346 (2006). “Standing has been rejected in such cases because the alleged injury is
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not ‘concrete and particularized,’ but instead a grievance the taxpayer suffers in some
indefinite way in common with people generally.” Id. at 344 (quotation marks and
citation omitted). “In addition, the injury is not ‘actual or imminent,’ but instead
‘conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id. (citation omitted). Although the prohibition against
taxpayer standing initially applied only to federal taxpayer suits, the Supreme Court in
Cuno held that the “rationale for rejecting federal taxpayer standing applies with
undiminished force to state taxpayers.” Id. at 345.
The Supreme Court established a narrow exception to the general prohibition
against taxpayer standing in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968). Flast allows a plaintiff
to use his taxpayer status to challenge whether the government has used public funds in
violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Id. at 88. The Supreme Court
has rejected opportunities to expand Flast’s narrow exception. E.g., Cuno, 547 U.S. at
347 (“[A]s plaintiffs candidly concede, ‘only the Establishment Clause’ has supported
federal taxpayer suits since Flast.”); Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 618 (1988)
(“Although we have considered the problem of standing and Article III limitations on
federal jurisdiction many times since [Flast], we have consistently adhered to Flast and
the narrow exception it created to the general rule against taxpayer standing”).
In this case, dismissal is proper because Plaintiffs lack standing. Plaintiffs seek to
challenge Idaho’s membership in SBAC as violating the United States Constitution’s
Compact Clause under Article I, Section 10. Compl. ¶ 1, Dkt. 1. They argue Idaho’s
membership in SBAC and its adoption of the Common Core Standards through SBAC
both injure Idaho students when applying to most colleges and universities. Id. ¶ 88. But,
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as Defendants argue, Plaintiffs do not allege they “(1) have children in the public school
system; (2) have children in an alternative school system; or (3) have children that have
applied for and been denied admission to a college or university.” Def. Br. at p. 7, Dkt. 91. Instead, Plaintiffs allege they are harmed as Idaho taxpayers “when the State expends
Idaho taxpayer funds illegally.” Pl. Opp. Br. at p. 3, Dkt. 13. Thus, Plaintiffs’ injury “is
the misuse and loss of their taxpayer payments to the Idaho general treasury, which is
causally connected directly to the State’s membership in SBAC, an illegal interstate
compact.” Id. Plaintiffs’ injury does not confer Article III standing; rather, the general
rule that payment of taxes, standing alone, is generally insufficient to confer standing is
applicable here. Any interest Plaintiffs may have in their tax dollars is “too
indeterminable, remote, uncertain and indirect to confer standing to challenge ‘their
manner of expenditure.’” Cuno, 547 U.S. at 345 (quotation marks and citation omitted).
Additionally, the Flast exception to the general rule cannot apply because Plaintiffs do
not allege an Establishment Clause-based violation.
Plaintiffs rely on an Idaho Supreme Court case to argue they have standing. In
Koch v. Canyon Cnty., 177 P.3d 372, 375 (Idaho Sup. Ct. 2008), the Idaho Supreme
Court acknowledged that, “[i]n appropriate circumstances, . . . taxpayers do have
standing to challenge governmental action.” Id. The Koch Court then found standing to
challenge government action under Article VIII, Section 3 of Idaho’s Constitution, “the
specific provision . . . prohibiting counties and other subdivisions of the State from
incurring any indebtedness or liability, other than for ordinary and necessary expenses, in
excess of their income and revenue for the year without voter approval.” Id. at 376. But
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even so, Koch is inapplicable here for two reasons. First, Koch’s holding was narrow.
Koch specifically addressed taxpayer standing to challenge whether the government has
used tax dollars in violation of Article VIII, Section 3 of Idaho’s Constitution. Id. The
Idaho Supreme Court has since declined to apply Koch when taxpayers challenge
government action under other constitutional provisions. See Martin v. Camas Cnty., 248
P.3d 1243, 1250-51 (Idaho Sup. Ct. 2011). Second, standing requirements under Article
III of the United States Constitution differ from those under Idaho’s Constitution. See
Wasden v. State Bd. of Land. Comm’rs, 280 P.3d 693, 697-98 (Idaho Sup. Ct. 2012)
(“Idaho’s Constitution has no ‘case and controversy’ clause like the federal
Constitution.”). Thus, Koch does not demonstrate that Plaintiffs have standing.
In sum, Plaintiffs lack standing because they have not alleged a legally cognizable
injury fairly traceable to a redressable harm. The Court will therefore dismiss Plaintiffs’
Complaint without prejudice, giving them leave to amend. See, e.g., Coakley v. Sunn, 895
F.2d 604, 608 (9th Cir. 1990) (instructing that dismissal for lack of standing should be
without prejudice).
ORDER
1.

Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 9) is GRANTED, and Plaintiffs’

Complaint is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Should Plaintiffs wish to file an
amended complaint, it must be filed with the Court within 30 days after the docketing of
this Order.

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DATED: April 11, 2016

_________________________
B. Lynn Winmill
Chief Judge
United States District Court

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