In Ohio Environmental Council v. State of Ohio, Case No. 23-CV-002403, the court of common pleas of Franklin County, Ohio addressed certain claims brought by environmental groups seeking to challenge the state land leasing process in Ohio. In particular, the court addressed whether the remedies sought by the environmental groups were moot as a matter of law, and even if not, whether plaintiffs had standing to bring their claims.
The complaint brought by plaintiffs was straightforward: they sought declarations that HB 507 was unconstitutional under both Ohio’s one-subject rule and Ohio’s three-consideration rule (i.e., Article II, Sections 15(D) and 15(C) of the Ohio Constitution, respectively). HB 507 was the legislation that amended the state land leasing process to require state agencies to lease public lands until the leasing commission promulgated certain rules that they had, up until that point, failed to issue. The constitutional provisions relied on by plaintiffs state that “[n]o bill shall contain more than one subject” and that “[e]very bill shall be considered by each house on three different days.”
The court first found that the expiration of HB 507’s mandatory leasing provision rendered much of plaintiffs’ claims moot. That is, the commission had already adopted the required administrative rules by the time the court issued its decision, and no entities had signed leases under that provision while it was in effect, rendering the requests for declaratory and injunctive relief largely of no practical effect.
Moreover, to the extent that some of plaintiffs’ claims were not rendered moot by the passage of commission rules, the court further found that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring them. The court observed first: “‘Before an Ohio court can consider the merits of a legal claim, the person or entity seeking relief must establish standing to sue.’…‘Standing to sue is part of the general understanding of what makes a case justiciable and is a ‘jurisdictional requirement.’’” Here, plaintiffs argued that they had both “organizational” standing (i.e., the environmental entities had standing based on the impacts to the entities themselves) and “associational” standing (i.e., standing to bring suit on behalf of their members). The court rejected both arguments.
The court rejected the argument that plaintiffs had organizational standing, finding that plaintiffs had failed to show that the legislation frustrated their organizational mission or caused them to divert resources—i.e., spent additional resources that they would not have otherwise spent. “As was succinctly summarized by the State, ‘Plaintiffs fail to present any evidence, beyond amorphous conclusory statements provided in affidavits that they diverted resources as the result of [] H.B. 507.’” The court also rejected the argument that plaintiffs had associational standing, finding that to have standing to challenge the constitutionality of an enactment, private litigants must show they have suffered a concrete injury “in a manner or degree [that is] different from that suffered by the public in general.” Here, plaintiffs failed to do so—“the Court cannot conclude that the State’s alleged violations of those rules have harmed Plaintiffs or their members in a distinct way from the public at large. That conclusion is distinctly true because the Mandatory Leasing Provision no longer poses a threat to Plaintiffs and their members.”
This decision will almost certainly be appealed, and if it is, we will update you on any future decisions.