Bush v. United States Congress

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: August 12, 2011
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2011-1461
• Status: Published

Opinion

lr\\

FILED

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FoR THE Disrizicr oF CoLUMBiA AUG 1 2 2011 Barbara M. Bush, ) C|egrakr;|g.;_'sp`tg£,s(t:g&l;t:nd

)

Plaintiff, ) )

v. ) Civil Action N0. ) ) y ` U.S. c@ngress, ) ll 1451

l )

Defendant. )

MEMoRANDUM oPINIoN

This matter is before the Court on plaintiffs pro se complaint and application to proceed in forma pauperis. The application will be granted and the complaint, failing to establish plaintiffs legal standing to sue, will be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. l2(h)(3) (requiring the court to dismiss an action "at any time" it determines that subject matter jurisdiction is wanting); Haase v. Sessz`ons, 835 F.Zd 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. l987) ("[T]he defect of standing is a defect in subject matter jurisdiction.").

Article IIl of the U.S. Constitution "limits the ‘judicial power’ of the United States to the resolution of ‘cases' and ‘controversies.’ " Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Am. Unitedfor Separatz'on of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471 (1982). The doctrine of standing serves to identify those " ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies’ that are of the justiciable sort referred to in Article III." Lujan v. Defenders of Wz`ldlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). To establish the "irreducible constitutional minimum of standing," a plaintiff must allege (l) an "injury in fact," defined as

"an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized," and (b)

"actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical"; (2) "a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of"; and (3) a likelihood "that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision." Id. at 560-61 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In order for an injury to be "concrete and paiticularized," it must "affect the plaintiff in a personal and individual way." Id. at 560 n.l.

Plaintiff, a resident of Hyattsville, l\/Iaryland, challenges the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 3552(b), which she claims “authorizes imprisonment in a federal prison for an ‘initial’ mental health evaluation under 18 U.S.C. § 4241, of a ‘non~convicted U.S. citizen." Compl. at l-Z. Plaintiff suggests that she was imprisoned under the challenged statute from February 2007 to July 2007, ia’. at l, but there is no indication from the complaint that she is currently affected by the statute. See id. at 2 (stating that "[t]he charge was dismissed on 6/3/11). Therefore, the Court

will dismiss the complaint for lack of standing.