180
case and the decisions of several other Courts of Appeals, which have held that a defendant's compliance with its permit after the commencement of litigation does not moot claims for civil penalties under the Act. See, e. g., Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. Stroh Die Casting Co., 116 F. 3d 814, 820 (CA7), cert. denied, 522 U. S. 981 (1997); Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Texaco Rfg. and Mktg., Inc., 2 F. 3d 493, 503-504 (CA3 1993); Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. Pan American Tanning Corp., 993 F. 2d 1017, 1020-1021 (CA2 1993); Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 897 F. 2d 1128, 1135- 1136 (CA11 1990).
II
A
The Constitution's case-or-controversy limitation on federal judicial authority, Art. III, § 2, underpins both our standing and our mootness jurisprudence, but the two inquiries differ in respects critical to the proper resolution of this case, so we address them separately. Because the Court of Appeals was persuaded that the case had become moot and so held, it simply assumed without deciding that FOE had initial standing. See Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U. S. 43, 66-67 (1997) (court may assume without deciding that standing exists in order to analyze mootness). But because we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in declaring the case moot, we have an obligation to assure ourselves that FOE had Article III standing at the outset of the litigation. We therefore address the question of standing before turning to mootness.
In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560-561 (1992), we held that, to satisfy Article III's standing requirements, a plaintiff must show (1) it 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
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007