Tarsney v. O'Keefe
| Decision Date | 15 June 2000 |
| Docket Number | PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS,No. 99-2986,DEFENDANT-APPELLEE,99-2986 |
| Citation | 225 F.3d 929 |
| Parties | (8th Cir. 2000) JAMES TARSNEY, JOE LOEFFLER, WAYNE OLHOFT, TAD JUDE, DR. STEVE CALVIN, DR. KAREN KARN, DR. KONALD PREM, DR. STANLEY JOHNSON, BRIAN GIBSON, JACK WEILAND, RUSS ROONEY, MARY ROONEY, DAVID RACER, EUGENE KEATING, JOSEPH KUEPPERS, JOHN C. CERRITO, DAVID STATES, MARY KAY STATES, KEITH JENSEN, ELIZABETH JENSEN, ROBERTA BECKER, LINDA PETTMAN, KAREN MESSICCI, ANGELA HEITHAUS, RENAE LAVOI, CHERI EMDE, MARY JACOBS, JUDY HADLEY, BETH GERLACH, MITZI SPERANZELLA, JOAN APPLETON, BECKY SAAD, MARLENE REID, BERNADINE SCROGGINS, DR. PAUL SPENCER, JUDI SPENCER, VIRGINIA BENYON, JENIFER LATAWIEC, MARIA SCHMITZ, BARBARA (BASIA) ZEBRO, CLETUS TAUER, RAMONA TAUER, PEG CULLEN, MEGHAN JONES, MARY PRIOR, RUTH POWERS, JOLENE SCHMITZ,, v. MICHAEL O'KEEFE, COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, STATE OF MINNESOTA, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese, of St. Paul and Minneapolis; American Center for Law and Justice; The Knights of Columbus, St. Louis Park Council #3949, Inc.; Members of the Minnesota Legislature; Minnesota Lawyers for Life, Amici on Behalf of Appellants. Submitted: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Murphy, Heaney, and Magill, Circuit Judges.
This case was brought by forty-seven individuals seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and Commissioner Michael O'Keefe, including enjoining them from using state funds to pay for certain abortions for low income women. State funds have been used for these abortions since the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned a state statutory scheme which authorized state spending on medical services related to childbirth but prohibited it for therapeutic abortions. In this case the plaintiff taxpayers allege that use of state money for abortions infringes upon the free exercise of their religion. The district court1 dismissed the case for lack of standing. The plaintiffs appeal, and several amicus briefs have been submitted in support.2 Because the appellants have not established standing, the federal court is without jurisdiction to reach the merits of the issues raised in their complaint, and we affirm its dismissal.
Many issues relating to the provision of abortion services have been legislated and litigated since the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and a number have related to the use of public funds for abortions. Since September 1976, Congress has prohibited the use of federal funds to reimburse the cost of abortions under Medicaid except under certain limited circumstances. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 302 (1980). This federal policy is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment after its original sponsor, Representative Henry Hyde, and it is effected by means of an amendment to the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services or by a joint resolution. See id. The Minnesota legislature restricted state funding for abortion services in 1987 when it passed laws prohibiting two Minnesota health care programs for indigent persons (the Medical Assistance Program (MA) and the General Assistance Medical Care Program (GAMC)) from using state funds to pay for abortion services.3 See Minn. Stat. Ann. § 256B.0625, subd. 16; § 256D.03, subd. 4(j).
These Minnesota statutory restrictions on public funding for abortions for low income women were challenged in state court by a class of individual women, several abortion providers, and an abortion funding agency. See Doe v. Gomez, 542 N.W.2d 17 (Minn. 1995). The plaintiffs in Doe had alleged that the funding restrictions impermissibly infringed a woman's right to privacy in violation of Article I, Sections 2, 7, and 10 of the Minnesota constitution, and the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed. See id. at 26, 32. The court chose not to interpret the state constitution as narrowly as the federal Constitution had been read in Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980), where the Supreme Court held that the Hyde restrictions on federal abortion funding did not violate any substantive rights in the federal Constitution. The Minnesota court stated that it had "long recognized that [it might] interpret the Minnesota Constitution to offer greater protection of individual rights than the U.S. Supreme Court has afforded under the federal constitution." Doe, 542 N.W.2d at 30. The court noted that a "substantial majority" of state courts that had addressed a similar issue had construed their state constitutions to provide greater protection for individual liberty for abortion services than that provided by the United States Constitution. Id. at 28.4 Minnesota has subsequently paid for therapeutically necessary abortion services in circumstances where federal funding is unavailable because of the Hyde Amendment.
In this case the appellants seek to challenge state expenditures for abortions, as well as the validity of the Minnesota Supreme Court's Doe decision. In their complaint they alleged standing as state taxpayers to raise several claims. They alleged that the use of state funds for abortions violates their state and federal rights to the free exercise of religion; that the appellees are unconstitutionally using public funds for private purposes; that state payment for abortion services beyond those allowed by the Hyde Amendment violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the federal constitution; and that Doe v. Gomez is invalid under the state and federal constitutions because of the absence of a case or controversy and that it violated the state constitution separation of powers requirement. The appellants seek a declaration that Doe is void, an injunction prohibiting the state from using public funds to pay for abortion services beyond those allowed by the Hyde Amendment, and a refund of the amount of their taxes used to fund abortion services. Most of the appellants identified themselves as members of religious groups opposed to abortion.5 Two of them, Wayne Olhoft and Tad Jude, were identified as former Minnesota state legislators.
The state parties moved to dismiss the complaint on several grounds. They argued that the appellants had only alleged standing to bring their Free Exercise Clause claim so any other claims should be dismissed and that taxpayer standing was not available to raise a claim under the Free Exercise Clause. The appellants argued in response that they should have taxpayer standing to sue under the Free Exercise Clause just as they might raise an Establishment Clause claim. The district court concluded that the appellants lacked taxpayer standing and granted the motion to dismiss.
Appellants argue again on appeal that they have standing as state taxpayers to bring a Free Exercise Clause challenge to the use of state funds to pay for medically necessary abortions for MA-and GAMC-eligible persons. They also now contend that they have standing under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the Hyde Amendment and as state legislators. The state parties respond that state taxpayer standing is not available for Free Exercise Clause claims, that the appellants did not properly plead any alternative standing grounds, and that the suggested grounds would not confer standing here even if they had been raised.
We review a decision dismissing a complaint for lack of standing de novo, "construing the allegations of the complaint, and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, most favorably to the plaintiff." Burton v. Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Comm'n, 23 F.3d 208, 209 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 951 (1994); see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501 (1975).
Standing is "the threshold question in every federal case . . . ." Warth, 422 U.S. at 498. Federal court jurisdiction is "defined and limited by Article III of the Constitution . . . [and] is constitutionally restricted to 'cases' and 'controversies'." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 94 (1968). A case or controversy exists only if a plaintiff "personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant." Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 (1979). If a plaintiff has not suffered an injury, there is no standing and the court is without jurisdiction to consider the action. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750-66 (1984).
The appellants allege that the use of state funds to pay for abortions violates their Free Exercise Clause rights because a portion of their tax revenue is being used to fund abortions, a practice that they oppose on moral and religious grounds. They argue that standing analysis for taxpayers should be the same for claims brought under either the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause because there is "no heirarchy of constitutional values." They urge this court to expand the holding in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968), in which the Supreme Court recognized taxpayer standing to raise Establishment Clause claims because that clause "specifically limit[s] the taxing and spending power conferred by Art. I, § 8." Id. at 105. In that case the Supreme Court left open the question of whether there could ever be taxpayer standing to raise Free Exercise Clause claims. See id. at 104 n.25.
The First Amendment, which has been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 (1940), provides in relevant part that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." U.S. Const. amend. I. Even though the two religion clauses are found in the same sentence of the First Amendment,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Us v. Hardman, 10
...Clause is written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual." (internal quotation marks omitted)); Tarsney v. O'Keefe, 225 F.3d 929, 936 (8th Cir. 2000) (holding that the Free Exercise Clause is "a constitutional guarantee on non interference by the government with religio......
-
Newdow v. Eagen
...cannot suffice for injury-in-fact for standing purposes") (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Tarsney v. O'Keefe, 225 F.3d 929, 938 (8th Cir.2000) (stating that the plaintiffs "cite no case in which a court has recognized a perceived moral injury to be the type of dir......
-
Williams v. Lara
...263 (4th Cir. 1999); Doe v. Madison Sch. Dist. No. 321, 177 F.3d 789, 793-94 (9th Cir. 1999); see also Tarsney v. O'Keefe, 225 F.3d 929, 940-41(8th Cir. 2000) (Magill, J., dissenting) (collecting 5. See, e.g., Board of Educ. v. New York State Teachers Ret. Sys., 60 F.3d 106, 110-11 (2d Cir.......
-
Stalhut v. City of Lincoln
...not itself create substantive rights, but "merely provides remedies for deprivations of rights established elsewhere." Tarsney v. O'Keefe, 225 F.3d 929, 939 (8th Cir.2000) (quoting City of Okla. City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 816, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 2432, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985)), cert. denied, _......