Dang!

9th Circuit: Whales Lack Standing to Sue in Federal Court

Update:  Walter Olson, of course, has more on this fish tale. However, this case reminded me of Justice Douglas's dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton that trees had standing.  In particular, he stated that

The critical question of "standing" 1 would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Contemporary public concern [405 U.S. 727, 742]   for protecting nature's ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation. See Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? - Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, 45 S. Cal. L. Rev. 450 (1972). This suit would therefore be more properly labeled as Mineral King v. Morton.

What about the common mosquito--everyone is trying to eradicate this allegedly noxious insect.  Think of the fees one could earn suing every city or county with an eradication program.  Does the mosquito not feel?  Is it the mosquito's fault that it carries dread diseases!