# Asarco Inc. v. Kadish

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 30, 1989 · 490 U.S. 605

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431684

## Case

- **Full name:** ASARCO INC. Et Al. v. KADISH Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 30, 1989
- **Citations:** 490 U.S. 605; 57 U.S.L.W. 4574; 109 S. Ct. 2037; 104 L. Ed. 2d 696; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 2652
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Brennan
- **Judges:** Kennedy, Members, Ii-A, Ii-B-, Ii-C, Brennan, White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, Rehnquist, Scalia, O'Connor
- **Cited by:** 635 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Disagreed with by United States Department of Labor v. Triplett, 494 U.S. 715 (1990).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431684

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that an Arizona teachers’ association did not have standing to challenge the State’s procedure for granting mineral leases that finance educational trust funds because the State could offset any increase by reducing other funding sources or could use the increase for s…
- stating that “state courts are not bound by the limitations of a case or controversy or other federal rules of justiciability even when they address issues of federal law, as when they are called upon to interpret the Constitution or, in this case, a federal statute”
- explaining that plaintiff’s theory of standing may not depend on “unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts and whose exercise of . . . discretion the courts cannot presume either to control or to predict.”
- explaining that the relative closeness between municipalities and their taxpayers justifies a more lenient test for establishing municipal taxpayer standing than for establishing state or federal taxpayer standing
- holding party did not have standing, in part, because “[wjhether the association’s claims of economic injury would be redressed by a favorable decision in this case depends on the unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts and whose exercise of broad a…

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice White, Justice Marshall, and Justice Blackmun join,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join all but Part II-B-1 of the Court’s opinion. I disagree both with the view expressed in Justice Kennedy’s opinion that the plaintiffs below, particularly the Arizona Education Association, had no standing, and also with the decision to reach that issue. The Court holds in Part II-B-2 that the question whether the state-court plaintiffs had Article III standing is irrelevant when it is the defendants below who now invoke the authority of the federal courts. The dis *634 cussion of the standing question in Part II-B-1 is therefore unnecessary.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431684. Public record. Not legal advice.