Bishop v. Bartlett

• Decision Date: 29 July 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-1840.,07-1840.
• Citation: 575 F.3d 419
• Parties: Richard L. BISHOP; Jack L. Moore; Michael A. Joyce; Christopher R. Donahoe, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Gary O. BARTLETT, Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, in his official capacity; Larry Leake; Lorraine G. Shinn; Charles Winfree; Genevieve C. Sims; Robert Cordle, Members of the State Board of Elections, in their official capacities; Michael F. Easley, Governor of the State of North Carolina, in his official capacity; Roy Cooper, Attorney General of the State of North Carolina, in his official capacity; Beverly Perdue, Lieutenant Governor of the State of North Carolina, in her official capacity; Elaine F. Marshall, Secretary of State of the State of North Carolina, in her official capacity; Denise Weeks, Principal Clerk of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in her official capacity; Janet Pruitt, Principal Clerk of the North Carolina Senate, in her official capacity; Joe Hackney, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in his official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

575 F.3d 419

Richard L. BISHOP; Jack L. Moore; Michael A. Joyce; Christopher R. Donahoe, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Gary O. BARTLETT, Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, in his official capacity; Larry Leake; Lorraine G. Shinn; Charles Winfree; Genevieve C. Sims; Robert Cordle, Members of the State Board of Elections, in their official capacities; Michael F. Easley, Governor of the State of North Carolina, in his official capacity; Roy Cooper, Attorney General of the State of North Carolina, in his official capacity; Beverly Perdue, Lieutenant Governor of the State of North Carolina, in her official capacity; Elaine F. Marshall, Secretary of State of the State of North Carolina, in her official capacity; Denise Weeks, Principal Clerk of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in her official capacity; Janet Pruitt, Principal Clerk of the North Carolina Senate, in her official capacity; Joe Hackney, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, in his official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 07-1840.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 13, 2009.

Decided: July 29, 2009.

ARGUED: Jeanette K. Doran, North Carolina Institute Of Constitutional Law, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellants. Alexander McClure Peters, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Robert Flynn Orr, North Carolina Institute of Constitutional Law, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellants. Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney General, Tiare B. Smiley, Special Deputy Attorney General, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, GREGORY, Circuit Judge, and FREDERICK P. STAMP, Jr., Senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge TRAXLER and Senior Judge STAMP joined.

OPINION

GREGORY, Circuit Judge:

Four North Carolina citizens challenge the process by which a proposed state constitutional amendment was placed before voters. In particular, the plaintiffs contend that the language used on the ballot to describe the amendment was misleading. That constitutional amendment, known as "Amendment One," authorized local government entities to issue bonds for certain types of development projects without first receiving voter approval. Because the plaintiffs were not themselves misled by the amendment process and did not otherwise allege sufficient facts to support their standing to sue, we affirm the district court's dismissal of the case.

I.

North Carolina Session Law 2003-403, signed into law in August 2003, provided for the submission of Amendment One to a vote in the November 2004 statewide general election. If ratified by the voters, Amendment One would add a new section to Article V of the North Carolina Constitution. That new section would permit the North Carolina General Assembly to develop a method for local government entities to borrow money to finance public improvements associated with private development projects through the creation of development financing districts. Furthermore, so long as only the additional tax revenues from the development districts were used to secure the financing for the projects, local governments would be permitted to obtain the financing without a referendum. Absent this constitutional amendment, Article V, Section 4(2), of the North Carolina Constitution generally requires a referendum before a government entity may incur such a debt.

Amendment One was ultimately ratified by the voters of North Carolina, with 1,504,383 (51.2%) voting in favor of the Amendment, and 1,429,185 (48.8%) voting against the Amendment. However, the plaintiffs allege that Amendment One should be invalidated because the amendment process violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, the plaintiffs claim that the actual language of Amendment One did not appear on the ballot, but rather only "an abbreviated summary with potentially misleading language." (J.A. 26.) According to the plaintiffs, the language on the ballot "was misleading and insufficient to adequately apprise voters that, if passed, the amendment would deprive them of their constitutionally given right to approve or disapprove the issuance of the bonds." (Id.)

In the plaintiffs' complaint, they did not allege that they had actually been misled by the ballot language. In fact, the plaintiffs later acknowledged that even though each of them had voted in the November 2004 election, none were misled by the ballot language. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs maintain that the constitutionally infirm amendment process caused the deprivation of their right to vote on future bond referenda. At the time of the filing of this suit, the city of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, had received approval to issue bonds on a project, but the bonds had not yet been issued. One of the plaintiffs, Jack L. Moore, is a registered voter in Roanoke Rapids, and he claims that he has been deprived of his right to vote on the issuance of bonds to finance the project. Similar projects were also under consideration in Raleigh, Charlotte, Chapel Hill, and Kannapolis.

After the plaintiffs filed this lawsuit, which included both federal and state constitutional due process claims, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the suit. Although neither party raised the issue of standing, the district court, on that ground, granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the claims arising under federal law. The district court then declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. The plaintiffs appeal the district court's determination as to the federal law claims.

II.

A.

We review a district court's dismissal for lack of standing de novo. White Tail Park, Inc. v. Stroube, 413 F.3d 451, 459 (4th Cir.2005); Piney Run Pres. Ass'n v. County Comm'rs of Carroll County, 268 F.3d 255, 262 (4th Cir.2001). Whether the issue of standing is first raised by the parties or by a court is irrelevant to our review, as standing implicates our jurisdiction to hear a case. See Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 278, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977); Dan River, Inc. v. Unitex Ltd., 624 F.2d 1216, 1223 (4th Cir.1980).

B.

The power of federal courts to entertain suits is circumscribed by Article III of the United States Constitution, which limits judicial authority to "Cases" and "Controversies." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559-60, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). Accordingly, "the doctrine of standing serves to identify those disputes which are appropriately resolved through the judicial process," and thus meet the requirements of Article III. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 154-55, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990).

The standing doctrine has both constitutional and prudential components. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). In order to satisfy the constitutional component of standing, a party must meet three requirements:

(1) [the party] has suffered an "injury in fact" that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 180-81, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130); accord Long Term Care Partners, LLC v. United States, 516 F.3d 225, 231 (4th Cir.2008).

With regard to the prudential component of standing, courts generally recognize three self-imposed constraints. See Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 474-75, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982); Allen, 468 U.S. at 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315. First, "when the asserted harm is a `generalized grievance' shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens, that harm alone normally does not war rant exercise of jurisdiction." Warth, 422 U.S. at 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197; see, e.g., United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974). Second, "the plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties." Warth, 422 U.S. at 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197; accord Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 474, 102 S.Ct. 752. Third, "a plaintiff's grievance must arguably fall within the zone of interests protected or regulated by the statutory provision or constitutional guarantee invoked in the suit." Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 162, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997); see, e.g., Ass'n of Data Processing Serv. Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970).

In determining whether a party has standing to bring suit, the party invoking the jurisdiction of the court bears the burden of establishing standing. FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 231, 110 S.Ct. 596, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990); Miller v. Brown, 462 F.3d 312, 316 (4th Cir.2006). "At the pleading stage, general factual allegations of injury resulting from the defendant's conduct may suffice, for on a motion to dismiss we presume that general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to support the claim." Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (internal quotations omitted). Nevertheless, the party invoking the jurisdiction of the court must include the necessary factual allegations in the pleading, or else the case must be dismissed for lack of standing. McNutt v. Gen. Motors...