Legal Case Summary

You're arguing next in case 16605, the town of Chester versus LaRoa States. Mr. Katiel? Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may please the Court. Had LaRoa filed a lawsuit against the town of Chester, it would have been dismissed for lack of standing. However, LaRoa claims that because it sought intervention under Rule 24A2, that things are different. That's wrong. An intravenor of right is a full-blown party and can invoke the full suite of powers of the Federal Judiciary from subpoenas to summary judgment. But standing is not dispensed and gross, and those invocations of judicial power must be grounded in Article 3, and that is particularly so because of two key facts. First, Rule 24A2 situates interveners for in a different position from regular plaintiffs. Insofar as interveners only must show that the existing parties don't adequately represent their interests. So it is absolutely foreseeable that an intravenor will adopt a different position than the parties in the case and invoke Federal Judicial Power. And second, like here, when the party challenges the standing of an intravenor and district court, that court does not abuse its discretion when it conducts the standing inquiry. This rule is efficient. It avoids all sorts of contingent, contingent, derivative interests. It sets up a difference between intervening on the defendant's side and plaintive side. That's easy, but not on the plaintive side. And why should there be that disuniformity? Kagan-Dazard-Rinke-Helton-Wolver-Torchett, the former Justice Justice Justice Ginsburg, you know, this case involves a plaintiff intervener, and some of the defendant intervener standards and stuff does get a little meta, and I don't know that you have to reach it here. But if you were to reach it and you were to ask, I'd say that the inquiry would be essentially the same. This Court in Hollingsworth versus Perry basically gave us that test for what that is, and it said in Hollingsworth, ordinarily, we think of standing as something about plaintiffs. But it's also true about defendants, too. And when a defendant on appeal is trying to bring an appeal or something like that, the question is, has the judgment below creating some sort of concrete harm to them? And we think that same test applies here. It applies to both plaintiffs and defendants, agreed that sometimes it gets a little bit difficult in the application. It's very easy to see how it applies for plaintiffs, a little more difficult for defendants, but we aren't saying that the rules should be different. Kagan-Dazard-Rinke-Helton-Wolver-Torchett, the same thing as a plaintiff would have. And that hasn't been the understanding in the courts or the commentators. You're probably familiar with the intervention commentary by David Shapiro and which he said, it should go without saying. It must be understood that there is a difference between the question whether one is a proper plaintiff or a defendant and an initial action and the question whether one is entitled to intervene

. So we think with respect to A2 interveners, they are full-blown parties. That's what this Court in Eisenstein said. And for those folks, they do have to show the same type of standing as a plaintiff. That doesn't mean that they have to show the exact same standing. They could have a different injury than a plaintiff in a given case. But they are going to exercise Justice Ginsburg the full suite of powers, and it doesn't make sense to say that they should be off the hook for a second. But that's a bad permissive intervener. S. Prevent permissive interveners are absolutely different as our brief explains, because 24b allows Federal courts to impose all sorts of restrictions on them. And so a good example is this Court's decision in Stringfellow in which the whole complaint by the intervener before this Court was, hey, you know, I want to exercise the full-blown rights of a party. This district court only gave me 24b permissive intervention and imposed restrictions on, for example, discovery. And they said they came to the Court and said that wasn't fair. We should have been a full party. And this Court rejected that. And Justice Brennan's opinion, his concurring opinion, tracked that of the majority in saying, essentially, courts have Federal courts of all sorts of powers over permissive interveners that they don't. They can restrict discovery. They can restrict claims, all sorts of that. That's not true for full-blown party status. Now, one last piece, Justice Ginsburg, it is the case that some permissive interveners under 24b do have standing. And for those folks, they can exercise, again, the full suite of powers, as long as there's no restriction on them put on them by the Federal Court. But there's no Article III problem with that. May I ask you? Brown with doing this. Say, think of a party wants a Court to do something. Now, you can't invoke a Court's power to do something, including an appellate Court unless you have standing. To say an intervener who wants the Court to do no more than what the plaintiff or an inappropriate case that defendant wants them to do does not need standing. But where an intervener wants a Court to do something different, then he does need standing. In which case it would save the Court lots of trouble if there are many interveners, you wouldn't have to look into the standing, or you would, if and only if they want the Court to do something different

. So Justice Breyer, we have much of that. So the question is, in your hype, in your question about what an intervener is, we agree that everything you said makes sense for permissive interveners. But for an A2 intervener, the reason they're coming to the Court is I was saying that the outset is because they disagree with what the parties are doing. They disagree, perhaps, with the argument. The lawyer amazingly thinks he's a better lawyer than the one who's already there. And so he thinks he can make a better argument. But if he doesn't want anything different than what they've already asked for, why does Article III insist that he have standing? Justice Breyer, I'm unaware of anyone who thinks that they're somehow a better lawyer than someone else who doesn't think that they would have a different take with respect to claims, relief, discovery, jury, trial. This very case, this very case he may want nothing different. All he may want is that the town gives the plaintiff the money, and then he will make his own case to say I'm equitably entitled. Well, let's take this very case. So the Serpetition at page 5 said, look, discovery, subpoenas, these are all very important parts of civil litigation. Our entire blue brief is all about that. They don't disclaim anything except claims in relief. Even that, I think there's an asterisk about, but which I'll explain in a minute. But everything about the trial strategy, they haven't disclaimed any of that. And that's true about the interview. The real difference, Mr. Kott, between claims and relief on the one hand, in which case, yes, you need standing too, and everything else on the other hand. In which case, there's somebody with standing who has those claims, who seeks that relief. So the court is doing exactly what the court has authority to do, but this intervener can contribute to the way the court is thinking about the case. So for two reasons. One is this court's decision in United States Catholic in 1988, in which the court said, quote, the subpoena power of a court is subject to those limitations inherent in the body that issues them because of Article 3. That is to say that subpoenas, all the discovery things, the only way a court can act is with Article 3. That is particularly so when you're thinking about discovery. There have been opinion after opinion of this court from Iqbal to Twombli to Justice Breyer's opinion at AMD that say that discovery is becoming the ballgame in litigation. And if you don't confine Federal courts to their lane as Article 3 does and allow bystanders, sometimes ideological bystanders who don't have Article 3 standing, you are imposing that using the massive power of the Federal. So it's totally confused with the permissive and automatic

. If it's okay to do all of this with permissive interveners and all of the discovery and other burdens that you're talking about, why isn't it okay to do it with automatic interveners who are limited to only the claims and relief that the plaintiff has asked for? Why is there some sort of added burden with respect to automatic that doesn't exist with respect to permissive? I might not have been clear. It's not about the label. It's about the function. That is if a permissive intervener is seeking discovery, is seeking subpoenas, is seeking to invoke the Federal judicial power. They must have standing. My only point is the types of people that Justice Breyer is positing, the people who say, hey, I'm just a better lawyer. I'm going to do the exact same stuff, claims relief or so on. Those are permissive interveners, or they are amici, and they don't need to show standing in order for them to participate in the life cycle of the case. That's often how it works. It doesn't matter to you at what point the Article III determination you say is required as made. I mean, I would think that why would it be necessary to do that at the outset? Why wouldn't it be when you get an intervener who decides, certainly, if he's going to raise a different claim, but also is the one, and the plaintiff is not the one, imposing particularly burdensome discovery? Can you wait until then when the other party objects and say, well, now I've got to look at your Article III standing because you're doing something that changes the litigation? Mr. Chief Justice, we don't think we have to win that by any stretch. We certainly think that the what matters more than the one, the what being that whenever federal judicial invocations of power be its subpoenas or summary judgment is invoked. That's when Article III standing is required. With respect to timing, we do think that the best course of action for a bunch of reasons is to do that at the outset, but, you know, you don't have to reach that here. Here, the district court did, and my friend on the other side would have to convince you that that's somehow an abusive discretion, which I think is a very hard thing to do in order for you to reverse the decision below. But here are some reasons why I think that the Racial Dinkrey makes sense at the front end. One is the Federal Court's already reviewing the 24A2 standards at that point, and it's a very closely analogous, if not exactly, identical set of questions, and so it makes sense to do it all in one piece rather than doing it separately. Second, as my friend on the other side's brief admits, there's no guarantee that that later inquiry will even happen. Indeed, his brief at page 30 admits that they kind of hope it doesn't happen, that some extra related claims will come in. And that's particularly so when it comes to, for example, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 subpoenas as to which the court doesn't often even find out about. They're just issued, and the power of the Federal Court is invoked, and so there might not be that later testing that would occur unless you do it right at that frontend. If you don't put Congress, could Congress enact a statute that provides for intervention of right for someone who doesn't satisfy Article 3? There are several statutes that do provide for intervention of right. So I think that it depends on what intervention means. If a statute provides for a full-blown party status for someone who lacks the components of Article 3, that to me every day of the week is unconstitutional, and that is precisely what they are advocating for. That's what we say to one of our private. And there will be a big condition on there being a party withstanding, remaining in the suit

. And I think the fact that there's a party withstanding remaining, I don't think it totally just as Kennedy may self-part of the problem, but to the extent that that person in that statute is invoking Federal Judicial Power in a way different from what that party withstanding in the suit does, that Flouts article 3, this Court said in Daimler Chrysler, standing is not dispensed and gross, and the idea that just because you have one plaintiff withstanding that allows someone else an intervener to invoke the Federal Judicial Power in all sorts of other ways, I think that would be a pretty- Sotomayor So putting interveners aside, suppose ten plaintiffs got together and brought a suit, so they were all joined in the same suit. And the district court satisfied itself that one of those plaintiffs had standing that there was a proper case and controversy before the Court that nobody else was asking for anything else or making any other claims. Does the district court have to go plaintiff by plaintiff by plaintiff by plaintiff Suasponte and decide whether each of them has standing? Sotomayor They do not just us, Kagan. And the reason why, and this is what I'm saying at the outset, is that interveners, A2 interveners are situated differently from those plaintiffs because plaintiffs generally march in lockstep. They file the same complaint, they're all on it together. They don't have to certify to the Court and prove inadequate representation of the existing parties. And so if you look for example at their brief, the one case they decide that you can be an actual party, and presumably you can do all of these things, you can do your own discovery, you can do, and that's fine with you. But if your name is an intervener, then it becomes not fine. Well, I think that, you know, to the extent that some party didn't have standing, it might be tested at that point. I just think the case for threshold standing inquiries akin to what I was saying to the Chief Justice, I think it's different for parties precisely because you can presume that parties do march in lockstep. And here's a very good example. The only case that they cite in their brief for when plaintiffs don't march in lockstep is a case called Archer. And when you go back and look at that case, those parties file the exact same discovery request. And that's generally how civil litigation unfolds with co-plaintiffs. It's very different when you're talking about interveners. The solicitor general, the nation's largest litigant, it pages two and 18 and 23 say that interveners, it's extremely likely that interveners do deviate in terms of their invocations of judicial power from the existing parties. You can't say that about co-plaintants. I was trying to understand the universe of cases in which a party, someone seeking intervention, would be able to come in under 24 A2 by claiming an interest relating to the property or transaction, but would not be able to claim injury in fact. And I found it difficult to identify that universe of cases. And I said, well, this is one of them. This case must be one of them. But actually, it doesn't seem, it seems to me that Loro has Article III standing. Now, Loro may not be, may not be entitled to recover under the takings clause. But why, what is there not Article III standing here? If it's, in fact, Loro has a mortgage where an equitable owner of the property. Isn't that enough for injury, in fact? We don't think it is. So two things. First is, we do think that the rule tracks Article III, and they basically move coextensively in second with respect to the facts here, a contingent interest, like this one, contingent on zoning approvals and so on, isn't enough for Article III

. Just as it wouldn't be, I mean, if you adopt their position, you are, I could take out a derivative on the outcome of the case that you heard today in the first hour, Perry versus MPSB, and bet a million dollars on who's going to win in the district court. That would allow me, intervener status, under the rule and under this view of Article III, and then allow me to be a full-blown party. That can't possibly be. It's almost as if I had the same trouble with Justice Alito did. I don't know why this party doesn't have standing, because at the end of the day, if there's a regulatory taking, you can say, and incidentally, that taking's award is mostly mine. Now, do we just take this case on the assumption that there's no standing? I do think that's the way the case comes to the Court, and, you know, I think this kind of contingent speculative interest would flunk this Court's precedence about Article III, particularly Clapper. Alito's point, if, if, as a practical matter, you have an interest to protect, that almost sounds like a shorthand for standing. K. K. K. K. K. That's three, track the same thing. Let me reserve. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. The best reading of Rule 2482 is that it requires an intervener as of right to demonstrate that he has Article III standing by showing that he has a cognizable interest and interest that is cognizable under Article III, and that could be impaired by the disposition of the pending lawsuit. I like to start where Justice Ginsburg started by focusing on how it works, sort of how you establish standing when you're talking about interveners and particularly defendant interveners. Like Justice Ginsburg, most of the courts of appeals that have held the other way, have held that standing is not required, have focused on whether an intervener can establish standing to initiate a lawsuit. But in our view, that is not the appropriate focus. But the rule itself focuses on is whether an intervener could be injured by the disposition of the pending lawsuit. And so the question of it's much more like asking whether a party has standing to appeal, than it is like asking whether a party would have standing to initiate a lawsuit. What you look at is whether there is a particular outcome of the lawsuit that one of the parties is trying to obtain, and you ask if that outcome happened, would it injure the intervener, the potential intervener, such that that person, the intervener, would have standing to appeal. And so it's the same whether you're talking about a plaintiff or a defendant. Now they have to have an interest that's related to the underlying dispute, but their injury comes from the disposition of the lawsuit. So in what sense, if any, is your position different from that of the petitioners? I think it's not particularly different

. I think they take sort of a stronger line than we do on the constitutional question. Our view is that you could imagine, I think everyone here agrees that there are some things a party, a litigant would do that don't require standing, like presenting oral argument, filing briefs. There are some things that do require standing, like seeking damages, filing a new claim. There are, in our view, there are some other things in the middle that are kind of fuzzy. In our view, as a theoretical matter, you can imagine a system where a person could easily obtain the label intervener, and then a court could later inquire into that intervener standing if and when they did something that would require standing. We think, as a matter of reading the rule, that the drafters of the rule have required that inquiry upfront. We think the requirements of rule 2482 are best read to map onto the Article III requirements. Why did they bother? Why would they bother? Why would they bother? If the only issue is standing, totally different language was used by the rule drafters. What? And I don't think they tracked very well, because to require standing, you need a immediacy of effect. And in a lot of these intervener cases, it's very clear that part of the interest and the property is a contingent one. If the person loses the property, my interest will be destroyed. That's very contingent and not likely to permit standing in a lot of situations. So there are sort of two parts of your question. The first one, the text, it's true that the text hasn't tracked the modern parlance of standing, but this rule was drafted, was adopted in 1966, which is before this Court's cases in, like, Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife. Well, just right. I mean, given that that's true, do you think, are you saying that Congress had it in mind to track the requirements of standing whatever they turned out to be? Because, of course, the standing doctrine in 1966 was nothing like what it is now. It was different, but the standing doctrine and intervention rules have always required that an intervener or a party have an interest. And this Court, going back to the beginning of the 20th century, has had that you, that an interest that is contingent or hypothetical is not sufficient for intervention, just like it had said, it's not sufficient for standing. Now, the predecessor to the 1966 version of the rule allowed intervention as a right, if a party would be bound by the judgment or if a party had an actual interest in property that was going to be distributed by the Court, I think it's clear that both of those sets of people would have had standing. And so that's kind of the people that I think the rule drafters had in mind. There certainly- Can I read, probably? I don't know where I draw a begin to get a kind of blank, is defendant standing. I can see defendant standing on appeal, et cetera, but forget it. What about on the initial thing? When does it defend? Are there any cases? Is there a good article? When does a defendant have or lack standing? That's just where I try to start. That I think the focus of the rule is on injury from the disposition of the lawsuit. And so what you would ask is, when you're talking about a defendant, if the plaintiff gets what it wants, will that harm the defendant, and I think it's natural to say, well, it harm it in a way that would give it standing to appeal. And so what the defendant is trying to do is instead of waiting until that point, it's trying to come in and prevent the injuries. This goes to the second part of Justice Sotomayor's question about the immanence and the respondent

. That gives a defendant standing to, again, that positions to issues about ask recipient is and so forth. Right. So if the intervener could be harmed by what the plaintiff wants in such a way that the intervener would have standing to appeal, then the intervener sees this injury coming down the road. This is an actual appending lawsuit. And so there's an imminent injury that's coming the way of the defendant, the dissent of the intervener pardon me. And so the intervener wants to get involved and attack his interest. Mr. Harrington, I really get confused when you invoke the doctrine of constitutional avoidance. So as I understand it, you're saying, well, all right, rule 24 is old and Luhan's news, but let's match them up. And any ambiguity we ought to just ignore or construe in your favor because of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance. But the upshot of applying the doctrine here to avoid the question whether interveners have to have Article 3 standing would be that we'd have to ask the Article 3 question effectively through the guys admittedly of rule 24 and every single case. So to avoid the constitutional question once we have to ask it every single time here after. Is there a precedent for applying that doctrine in quite that way? Sotomayor, I appreciate the candor of that concessions. He's a very capable lawyer and has proven himself, so would that respect to that argument. So we're not pressing that argument here. A couple of questions. Can I ask you the same question that I asked Mr. Catchell? Could Congress pass a statute and say, gives someone a right to intervene, someone who would not have Article 3 standing? Yes. I mean, I think Congress has done that with a number of statutes. I think in those cases, the intervention would be, you know, those interveners would not be permitted to do something that would require a standing without a subsequent assessment of the standing of those interveners. So, you know, in this case, as in many cases, I think the point of the intervener is attempting to intervene is that it wants to get damages. Well, you can't get damages if you don't have standing. And so even if he prevails here, there's going to have to be some showing at some point on the road that he is standing to get damages. I'm not sure I understood your answer to the question. You said this person does not have to show standing, Article 3 standing in the first instance, but if she tries to do something different than what the plaintiff is doing, she does. Yes. I mean, I thought the question was, if there was a setting aside Rule 24A, if there was a statute that authorized intervention into the matter

. Right. Did you not want to? There were several statutes. Yes. So, RV was as a constitutional matter. Again, you could have a system where you could easily get the label of intervener and then a court could later inquire into your standing if and when you did something that required standing. We think Rule 24A2 is best read to require that standing up front. And for some of the reasons that Mr. Kothyo was saying, that's because the rule requires an intervener to show that their interests are not adequately represented by existing parties and that they're going to be injured. So you think it is satisfactory to satisfy the constitutional requirement of standing. If Congress says you have standing? No. The question was, if Congress says a party can intervene as a right and doesn't require a showing of standing, we don't think that is a violation of the Constitution. As long as you don't let that intervener later do something that requires standing without then asking for a showing. You go into that here. No, you don't have to go into that. There have been a couple of questions about sort of piggyback interveners. And I think you have to keep in mind that there is Rule 24B, which is, allows permissive intervention and permissive intervention expressly contemplates that a party has claims, has legal questions or factual questions in common with existing parties. And I think if a person just wants to come in and say, oh, yeah, I have the same kind of claim you do, they can seek permissive intervention or they can just file their own claim. The point of Rule 24A2 is that there is a potential injury from the dispassion of the lawsuit to the person who is trying to intervene. And there's no reason to have it. And it's a step that you keep referring to, which doesn't make any sense under Article 3, which is the one about whether the existing party is adequately protecting your interest. That's right, the rule. I mean, let's assume they've hired the best lawyer in the world. And they've made every conceivable argument, but you're still a contract vendor with the kind of potential injury that the others assume would give you standing. Why is it that we then read Article 3 into Rule 24? Well, tell me if I'm not getting our question, but in our view, Rule 24A2 requires a showing of Article 3 standing. And in addition, you have to show timeless and inadequate representation. And so in those two ways, it's a higher hurdle than Article 3 is. But that's appropriate because it is a person trying to come in and sort of intrude on an existing lawsuit

. And there you need to show that you really need to be able to come in because otherwise your interests are going to be impaired by the lawsuit. So we think the ultimate question under Article 3 is really the same as the ultimate question under Rule 24A2. And under Article 3, if you're asking whether a person can initiate a lawsuit or can appeal, what you're asking is, do they have a substantial enough interest in the outcome of this actual dispute? And it's really the same inquiry under Rule 24A2. Do they have an interest that's, that's, this Court has said it has to be an interest that's legally cognizable? That's significantly protectable interest? That's the same language that the Court has used under Article 3. Thank you, Council. Mr. Buretsky. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. Petitioner's effort to turn every intervention motion into a constitutional question is a solution in search of a problem. Article 3 requires only a case or controversy. It does not speak to the question of who can join an existing case or controversy. So somebody who has no connection other than that they're very interested in the subject. It's an environmental case. The Sierra Club wants to be involved. It's all right to allow them to intervene as a party because there is a case or controversy. They don't, you know, they wouldn't satisfy Article 3 standing, but they don't have to, according to you. So their views were valuable, their participation in, you know, the deposition's discovery all might help the Court. So why not? Mr. Chief Justice, Rule 24A2 would not allow the party that you don't know. Well, I know, but I'm asking a constitutional question, putting aside exactly what the rule is. If you say all there has to be is an existing case or controversy, and once there is, you don't care whether the person has standing, Congress could pass a statute saying anybody who the Court thinks is appropriate, you know, expert in the area, qualified with a record or whatever, they can jump in and participate as a party, and you would say that's okay. Article 3 would not speak to that particular bad idea by Congress. I can't tell whether that's a yes or a no. That is a yes. That type of proceeding is okay. Constitutionally it is okay

. Rule 24 does not authorize that. If Congress were to do something like that, district courts would have ample tools, the same as the tools they use now, to manage multi-party litigation and to prevent these hypothetical interveners from taking the case in. I hope I haven't given Congress an idea, but I mean, is that consistent with what we've said that Article 3 standing plays an essential role in the separation of powers? Absolutely, because the purpose of Article 3, its core purpose, is to prevent courts from issuing advisory opinions about the actions of the political branches, absent a need to do so, absent a case or controversy. But as it goes along, the defendant says, well, I'm going to settle with the original plaintiff. Okay. You know, he's raised this claim. I'm going to do this. But I'm still going to litigate against the Sierra Club. Is that okay? No, because at that point, there would no longer be a case or controversy for the Sierra Club to participate in, absent its own injury that it was pursuing relief for. The key point under Article 3 is that its purpose is to prevent the judicial machinery from being mobilized in the first instance and opining on the actions of the political branches. So, can you give me a hypothetical example of a case where intervention should be allowed because it's important, but there's no Article 3 standing, maybe outside of the context of this suit. I think there may be Article 3 standing. What is there a practical illustration you can give us for why it's very important to allow this intervener under the rules, even though there's no standing? I think defendant interveners are the best example of that, and it doesn't make sense to ask whether a defendant intervener, whether it's an environmental group defending an EPA regulation, whether it's white employees intervening in a discrimination claim to defend the employer's promotion practices. Here, of course, we have a plaintiff intervener, correct? Yes. But did you give me an example of that outside of the context of this case? Sure. So an example might be the plaintiffs in Clapper did not have standing because there was no evidence in that case that their interest in not being surveilled was actually being infringed. If hypothetically speaking, you had a resident of a house who was being surveilled, or plausibly alleged that he was being surveilled. Perhaps the roommate of that individual whose cell phone was not presently being tracked would have an interest under Rule 24. That interest might well be impaired or impeded if the wiretapping program as to the house were judged constituted. Well, I'll look at Clapper, as I recall. They said that they were threatened. They were chilled. Yes, and I'm meeting with their clients, and so forth. And I'm just building a hypothetical off of Clapper, so looking at Clapper, I understand. I'm going to track this. But the people- We've said it with respect to Union members who have permitted to intervene, even though the Union has all of the claimed contract rights. In the Tribovitch case, that's right. What the Court recognized in Tribovitch was that the Union member could intervene not to assert separate claim or relief, but to present arguments, to potentially present evidence, and to protect the Union members' interest in that case. And would they lack Article 3 standing? Well, the Union member in Tribovitch would lack Article 3 standing because of the particular statute of the issue there in which Congress authorized only the Secretary of Labor to bring suit. No, but that's not an article, that's not an Article 3 question. That's a merits question. That's the scope of the claim. So that would certainly be, that would be a situation where the Union member would not have a cause of action. But presumably if Congress had authorized a cause of action, we'd have to look at the Union member's particular harm. How could I come back to Justice Kennedy's question? Can you give me a real case where there is, where you believe that the requirements of 24 A2 are met, but there is not, there was not Article 3 standing? So again, I think the defendant and Irvina are examples of plaintiff, plaintiff and Irvina's. So let me talk for a moment about this case. We absolutely have standing in this case because we are the purchasers of the property. If you actually go through all of the agreements and go through New York law about ownership interests, it does get complicated. Again, we, the interest that we have is not a contingent one as the Second Circuit recognized were actually the equitable owner. But let's say that in parsing through all of these agreements and all of these facts, it were determined that legal title is the key to having standing to pursuing a regular taking claim. Again, I don't believe that ought to be the outcome here. But if you had such a situation, we would have a sufficient interest, even if as a technical matter we lack legal standing, our equitable ownership interest would be a sufficient one to be protected under Rule 24. It would be impaired if we were absent from this litigation, and we ought in that situation to be allowed to intervene. The Second Circuit assumed otherwise, right? It decided this case on the assumption that there wasn't Article 3 standing, right? It didn't, it did not decide the question on that assumption. It simply did not reach the question of whether there was Article 3 standing or not. The District Court had held incorrectly, we believe, that we lacked standing. And what the Second Circuit held was that the District Court was wrong as a matter of law to require that inquiry in the first place. Well, so now you're arguing before us that, in fact, you do have Article 3 standing. So that if we agree with you, the Second Circuit decision that it's not necessary would stand, right? It would. The question you want us to decide is a real estate law question under New York law. Well, I'm not asking you to decide that question. I was trying to respond to the hypotheticals about a point if we would lack standing. And how does a defendant have standing? How does that work? What the government says is a defendant has standing because the judgment in the case may affect an interest of the defendant, a significant interest. Is that right? That's not an Article 3 standing inquiry

. What the Court recognized in Tribovitch was that the Union member could intervene not to assert separate claim or relief, but to present arguments, to potentially present evidence, and to protect the Union members' interest in that case. And would they lack Article 3 standing? Well, the Union member in Tribovitch would lack Article 3 standing because of the particular statute of the issue there in which Congress authorized only the Secretary of Labor to bring suit. No, but that's not an article, that's not an Article 3 question. That's a merits question. That's the scope of the claim. So that would certainly be, that would be a situation where the Union member would not have a cause of action. But presumably if Congress had authorized a cause of action, we'd have to look at the Union member's particular harm. How could I come back to Justice Kennedy's question? Can you give me a real case where there is, where you believe that the requirements of 24 A2 are met, but there is not, there was not Article 3 standing? So again, I think the defendant and Irvina are examples of plaintiff, plaintiff and Irvina's. So let me talk for a moment about this case. We absolutely have standing in this case because we are the purchasers of the property. If you actually go through all of the agreements and go through New York law about ownership interests, it does get complicated. Again, we, the interest that we have is not a contingent one as the Second Circuit recognized were actually the equitable owner. But let's say that in parsing through all of these agreements and all of these facts, it were determined that legal title is the key to having standing to pursuing a regular taking claim. Again, I don't believe that ought to be the outcome here. But if you had such a situation, we would have a sufficient interest, even if as a technical matter we lack legal standing, our equitable ownership interest would be a sufficient one to be protected under Rule 24. It would be impaired if we were absent from this litigation, and we ought in that situation to be allowed to intervene. The Second Circuit assumed otherwise, right? It decided this case on the assumption that there wasn't Article 3 standing, right? It didn't, it did not decide the question on that assumption. It simply did not reach the question of whether there was Article 3 standing or not. The District Court had held incorrectly, we believe, that we lacked standing. And what the Second Circuit held was that the District Court was wrong as a matter of law to require that inquiry in the first place. Well, so now you're arguing before us that, in fact, you do have Article 3 standing. So that if we agree with you, the Second Circuit decision that it's not necessary would stand, right? It would. The question you want us to decide is a real estate law question under New York law. Well, I'm not asking you to decide that question. I was trying to respond to the hypotheticals about a point if we would lack standing. And how does a defendant have standing? How does that work? What the government says is a defendant has standing because the judgment in the case may affect an interest of the defendant, a significant interest. Is that right? That's not an Article 3 standing inquiry. And in fact, the Article 3 standing. I mean, I don't see it anymore with the defendant how you can find a defendant without standing on that basis. I mean, the reason I find it relevant is because I think the other side is arguing that an intervener has to have standing in the sense that a defendant has to have standing. At least when you intervene on the side of the defendant, as most do. So first of all, it doesn't make sense to speak about whether a defendant intervener has standing because a defendant intervener is not the one who is alleging an injury and invoking the authority of the Court. Second of all, we can't, can we write an opinion and say the only people have to have standing, I mean, I don't know how to write this opinion unless you're talking about standing in general, yes or no on that. And why can a defendant invoke the Court's power on appeal, for example, subpoenas discovery where a defendant's all the time invoke the Court's power? And how can they do that if they don't have, I don't know. Even how to phrase the question, but you see what I'm driving at. I think what you're driving at is the difficulty of writing an opinion that applies a standing. No, not the difficulty of writing an opinion. I want to know, is there such a thing as defendants having or not having standing? And if there is such a thing, why and how? And if you don't know the answer right away, have you ever read anything on the topic? And what would you recommend? The only sense in which there is defendant standing does not apply here. Courts have recognized defendant's standing in two circumstances where defendants are appealing and thereby invoking the jurisdiction of a new Court and where defendants are asserting counterclaims and thereby acting. What about when they ask for a subpoena to be enforced? I can't go in and you can't, well, people can't just go in randomly and say I'd like to have a subpoena enforced against so and so. No, of course not. And a defendant can do that as part of an Article III case or controversy once there already is an existing case or controversy. But let's put that aside the question of intervention. How can a defendant not have standing? I mean, somebody sews me, so they're dragging me into court. I don't want to be in the Court. I'm there because I'm the defendant. And then the Court is going to turn around and say, well, you have to leave because you don't have standing. Can that possibly be? But most defendants would be happy to accept that and the anomaly that you're pointing out would go on without me. The anomaly that you're pointing out is precisely why it doesn't make sense to ask the question whether defendants have standing. Once there is a case or controversy, the judicial power extends to all of it. That includes discovery requests, subpoena requests, and whatever else, by participants in that case or controversy. To get back to Justice Breyer's question, the reason that standing as an inquiry does not work in particular for defendant interveners is that there are two contingencies before a defendant intervener can even be said to be injured. The first is that the district court has to rule in a way that the defendant intervener doesn't want. And the second is that then the defendant intervener has to actually be harmed by that as opposed to the defendant intervener simply having an interest that may as a practical matter

. And in fact, the Article 3 standing. I mean, I don't see it anymore with the defendant how you can find a defendant without standing on that basis. I mean, the reason I find it relevant is because I think the other side is arguing that an intervener has to have standing in the sense that a defendant has to have standing. At least when you intervene on the side of the defendant, as most do. So first of all, it doesn't make sense to speak about whether a defendant intervener has standing because a defendant intervener is not the one who is alleging an injury and invoking the authority of the Court. Second of all, we can't, can we write an opinion and say the only people have to have standing, I mean, I don't know how to write this opinion unless you're talking about standing in general, yes or no on that. And why can a defendant invoke the Court's power on appeal, for example, subpoenas discovery where a defendant's all the time invoke the Court's power? And how can they do that if they don't have, I don't know. Even how to phrase the question, but you see what I'm driving at. I think what you're driving at is the difficulty of writing an opinion that applies a standing. No, not the difficulty of writing an opinion. I want to know, is there such a thing as defendants having or not having standing? And if there is such a thing, why and how? And if you don't know the answer right away, have you ever read anything on the topic? And what would you recommend? The only sense in which there is defendant standing does not apply here. Courts have recognized defendant's standing in two circumstances where defendants are appealing and thereby invoking the jurisdiction of a new Court and where defendants are asserting counterclaims and thereby acting. What about when they ask for a subpoena to be enforced? I can't go in and you can't, well, people can't just go in randomly and say I'd like to have a subpoena enforced against so and so. No, of course not. And a defendant can do that as part of an Article III case or controversy once there already is an existing case or controversy. But let's put that aside the question of intervention. How can a defendant not have standing? I mean, somebody sews me, so they're dragging me into court. I don't want to be in the Court. I'm there because I'm the defendant. And then the Court is going to turn around and say, well, you have to leave because you don't have standing. Can that possibly be? But most defendants would be happy to accept that and the anomaly that you're pointing out would go on without me. The anomaly that you're pointing out is precisely why it doesn't make sense to ask the question whether defendants have standing. Once there is a case or controversy, the judicial power extends to all of it. That includes discovery requests, subpoena requests, and whatever else, by participants in that case or controversy. To get back to Justice Breyer's question, the reason that standing as an inquiry does not work in particular for defendant interveners is that there are two contingencies before a defendant intervener can even be said to be injured. The first is that the district court has to rule in a way that the defendant intervener doesn't want. And the second is that then the defendant intervener has to actually be harmed by that as opposed to the defendant intervener simply having an interest that may as a practical matter. That brings me back to my original question. A defendant can go and get subpoenas and so forth. But if he has a counter claim, that's different than he has to show standing. So why don't we apply the same standard to the interveners? The interveners have to be like defendants in respect to intervening on the decide. On either side, they can get subpoenas, et cetera. But if they want something that somebody else doesn't want in this case, then they have to have standing. I think this goes to the question of what is the standard for having standing? In other words, what is it that you might want to do differently that would require you to have standing? And the only thing that you might want to do differently that would require standing is asserting a different claim or seeking a different form of relief, not making a different argument, even potentially injecting a constitutional argument the way a meeky do and not seeking discovery or subpoenas, because those are not a claim or form of relief with which Article III is concerned. Q. Counselor, on that score, why isn't that exactly the case we have here? The plaintiff in this case, by way of relief, seeks a money damages for the taking. All right. That's its complaint, page 122 of the Joint Appendix. Your client, page 162, wants damages for itself. That's something that the plaintiff could not have had standing to obtain for your client. Why isn't that a form of additional relief, where an intervener wishes a judgment against the defendant directly in its favor that would be enforceable through all the mechanisms of post-judgment, garnishment, leans, et cetera, and would offer your client claim preclusion effect, not just non-mutual issue preclusion, for example. It seems to me like that is a different form of relief, isn't it? Just to say, the way in which this case has been litigated and trial counsel conceded this in the Second Circuit, I'll represent it to you here today, we are not seeking separate relief only in our name. We except for the complaint expressly says that. The complaint says that, but oftentimes the complaint says one thing, and over the course of litigation, the theories might develop differently, and the way in which we are at this point seeking relief here is relief to recover for Sherman. We will at a later date need to figure out how we'll get that money from him, and we would either need to potentially settle that claim, or have standing to bring our own claim in Federal Court or in State Court to get the money from him. But the reason- Succeeded in disclaiming the relief sought in your complaint. We are disclaiming- Is there any relief you're seeking at this stage? Well, the relief that we are seeking is to maximize Sherman's recovery because we have a stake in that recovery, and it's a stake that Rule 24A2 protects and gives us an ability to intervene to defend. Would you agree, though, that if an intervener did seek relief in its own name, that that would be relief beyond that, which the plaintiff would be entitled to provide? I mean, after all, plaintiff normally doesn't have standing to seek a judgment someone else's name. So would you agree in the normal case that we'd have a problem here? If, by the normal case, you mean a situation where an intervener comes in and asks for either additional money or money to be paid separately? Or just a judgment in its favor. So whether it's a judgment in its favor, I think, depends really on the scope of the judgment. This Court has repeatedly affirmed judgments in favor of plaintiffs without inquiring into their standing once it had assured itself that at least one plaintiff in the case had standing. So just the issuance of a judgment would be an inconsistent standard with this Court's Settledger's prudence. Now, under the petitioner's theory of this case, every exercise of judicial power. I'm sorry for interrupting, Kelsa, if you just answer my question, I'd be grateful

. That brings me back to my original question. A defendant can go and get subpoenas and so forth. But if he has a counter claim, that's different than he has to show standing. So why don't we apply the same standard to the interveners? The interveners have to be like defendants in respect to intervening on the decide. On either side, they can get subpoenas, et cetera. But if they want something that somebody else doesn't want in this case, then they have to have standing. I think this goes to the question of what is the standard for having standing? In other words, what is it that you might want to do differently that would require you to have standing? And the only thing that you might want to do differently that would require standing is asserting a different claim or seeking a different form of relief, not making a different argument, even potentially injecting a constitutional argument the way a meeky do and not seeking discovery or subpoenas, because those are not a claim or form of relief with which Article III is concerned. Q. Counselor, on that score, why isn't that exactly the case we have here? The plaintiff in this case, by way of relief, seeks a money damages for the taking. All right. That's its complaint, page 122 of the Joint Appendix. Your client, page 162, wants damages for itself. That's something that the plaintiff could not have had standing to obtain for your client. Why isn't that a form of additional relief, where an intervener wishes a judgment against the defendant directly in its favor that would be enforceable through all the mechanisms of post-judgment, garnishment, leans, et cetera, and would offer your client claim preclusion effect, not just non-mutual issue preclusion, for example. It seems to me like that is a different form of relief, isn't it? Just to say, the way in which this case has been litigated and trial counsel conceded this in the Second Circuit, I'll represent it to you here today, we are not seeking separate relief only in our name. We except for the complaint expressly says that. The complaint says that, but oftentimes the complaint says one thing, and over the course of litigation, the theories might develop differently, and the way in which we are at this point seeking relief here is relief to recover for Sherman. We will at a later date need to figure out how we'll get that money from him, and we would either need to potentially settle that claim, or have standing to bring our own claim in Federal Court or in State Court to get the money from him. But the reason- Succeeded in disclaiming the relief sought in your complaint. We are disclaiming- Is there any relief you're seeking at this stage? Well, the relief that we are seeking is to maximize Sherman's recovery because we have a stake in that recovery, and it's a stake that Rule 24A2 protects and gives us an ability to intervene to defend. Would you agree, though, that if an intervener did seek relief in its own name, that that would be relief beyond that, which the plaintiff would be entitled to provide? I mean, after all, plaintiff normally doesn't have standing to seek a judgment someone else's name. So would you agree in the normal case that we'd have a problem here? If, by the normal case, you mean a situation where an intervener comes in and asks for either additional money or money to be paid separately? Or just a judgment in its favor. So whether it's a judgment in its favor, I think, depends really on the scope of the judgment. This Court has repeatedly affirmed judgments in favor of plaintiffs without inquiring into their standing once it had assured itself that at least one plaintiff in the case had standing. So just the issuance of a judgment would be an inconsistent standard with this Court's Settledger's prudence. Now, under the petitioner's theory of this case, every exercise of judicial power. I'm sorry for interrupting, Kelsa, if you just answer my question, I'd be grateful. If a plaintiff seeks a judgment in its own name, can't seek it for an intervener, agree? If the question is whether the judgment requires a plaintiff can seek a judgment against the defendant in someone else's name. Generally not, right? That's not a trick question. Now, generally not. Okay. So if an intervener then seeks a judgment in its name, generally speaking, that's asking for relief beyond that which the plaintiff has standing itself to provide. Right? Not necessarily. And not the way this Court has considered the question in numerous cases where it's affirmed judgments in favor of parties without standing or at least without inquiring into their standing. I'll let you go. Well, I may not. What is the leading case you have where the Court has granted judgment in favor of a party without standing? Other than the TurboVitch putting that aside. In Department of Commerce versus U.S. House of Representatives, Clinton versus New York, Bouscher versus Sinner, these are all cases where the Court has expressly said, we satisfy ourselves of the jurisdiction of the standing of one plaintiff and need not inquire further. Well, no, no, I know that. But I mean, that's, that's, those cases are distinct in that the Court saying we need not inquire further because those are separate parties, but they're all seeking the same relief. It may be necessary at some point for the Court to inquire further if it determines that the party is seeking to exercise authority beyond Article 3. Sure, you don't have to decide cases that might never come up. Issues that might never come up, but I don't see how that helps you. And we agree that if, in fact, an intervener, if we ourselves came in at a later date filed an amended pleading and said, now we are seeking additional damages in our own name, that at that point in Article 3 inquiry would be required. But the point is that so long as we are not seeking a separate claim or separate relief, no inquiry into standing is required. And that is what this case, this Court's case is support. Well, no, but then the question that comes upon if you were then exercising the authority to issue subpoenas with respect to other parties, you're exercising the authority, the Court, in a way that expands beyond what the particular plaintiff was seeking. You are, but you are not exercising the authority of the Court in a way that's relevant to Article 3 because you're not seeking a separate claim or a separate form of relief. What Article 3 is called the Court? That just seems to me to be circular. I guess I was looking for a reason why that is so. The reason I don't think it's circular is the purpose of Article 3 is not to micromanage the conduct of litigation and how litigation is conducted. It's to prevent courts from interjecting themselves into a controversy in the first instance

. If a plaintiff seeks a judgment in its own name, can't seek it for an intervener, agree? If the question is whether the judgment requires a plaintiff can seek a judgment against the defendant in someone else's name. Generally not, right? That's not a trick question. Now, generally not. Okay. So if an intervener then seeks a judgment in its name, generally speaking, that's asking for relief beyond that which the plaintiff has standing itself to provide. Right? Not necessarily. And not the way this Court has considered the question in numerous cases where it's affirmed judgments in favor of parties without standing or at least without inquiring into their standing. I'll let you go. Well, I may not. What is the leading case you have where the Court has granted judgment in favor of a party without standing? Other than the TurboVitch putting that aside. In Department of Commerce versus U.S. House of Representatives, Clinton versus New York, Bouscher versus Sinner, these are all cases where the Court has expressly said, we satisfy ourselves of the jurisdiction of the standing of one plaintiff and need not inquire further. Well, no, no, I know that. But I mean, that's, that's, those cases are distinct in that the Court saying we need not inquire further because those are separate parties, but they're all seeking the same relief. It may be necessary at some point for the Court to inquire further if it determines that the party is seeking to exercise authority beyond Article 3. Sure, you don't have to decide cases that might never come up. Issues that might never come up, but I don't see how that helps you. And we agree that if, in fact, an intervener, if we ourselves came in at a later date filed an amended pleading and said, now we are seeking additional damages in our own name, that at that point in Article 3 inquiry would be required. But the point is that so long as we are not seeking a separate claim or separate relief, no inquiry into standing is required. And that is what this case, this Court's case is support. Well, no, but then the question that comes upon if you were then exercising the authority to issue subpoenas with respect to other parties, you're exercising the authority, the Court, in a way that expands beyond what the particular plaintiff was seeking. You are, but you are not exercising the authority of the Court in a way that's relevant to Article 3 because you're not seeking a separate claim or a separate form of relief. What Article 3 is called the Court? That just seems to me to be circular. I guess I was looking for a reason why that is so. The reason I don't think it's circular is the purpose of Article 3 is not to micromanage the conduct of litigation and how litigation is conducted. It's to prevent courts from interjecting themselves into a controversy in the first instance. The argument you're brief, you focus on case or controversy. There has to be a case or controversy. But we have said repeatedly that Article 3 standing is an element of the case or controversy requirement. And so I don't know how you can put Article 3 standing to one side while saying it's okay because we still have a case or controversy. K. So, Article 3 standing is an element of the case or controversy requirement or an interpretation of the case or controversy requirement. But the requirement that this Court has imposed in order to have standing is an interest that is injured, imminently or concretely has been injured, traceability and redressability all with respect to a particular claim and a form of relief, not with respect to things that happen along the way in litigation. K. With respect to a particular party, you don't just ask, is there an injury? You said, has the plaintiff been injured? You don't just ask, is there redressability? You said, is his injury redressed? I don't see how you can just carve off one part of the test for standing. K. Well, I think the reason for carving it off, again, goes back to the purposes of Article 3, which are not to police every single exercise of judicial power. When an amicus comes into court, it potentially introduces a new issue, a new constitutional question. In this case, the government has introduced a rule 24 issue that we've responded to. Each of those is a form of asking the Court to use its power, power to resolve the case a certain way. But we're talking about mandatory intervention. The district would go, intervention must, the court must permit anyone to intervene. And then there's this requirement of, there would be a practical interest and so it seems to me you're going to have to, in order just to protect the courts against party committee, you're going to have to make an inquiry that looks very much like standing anyway. So I think this goes to a key premise of the Petitioner's argument that I want to make sure to clarify. The petitioner is arguing that once an intervener comes in as an intervener of right, as of right, there can essentially be no limits on what that intervener can do. And that's simply not true. The advisory committee notes make clear that restrictions can be placed on interveners as of right. We cite numerous cases in our brief in which courts have recognized that they can limit the discovery of, of interveners as of right. Certainly they can limit them from asserting claims in additional forms of relief. And in fact, courts are used to doing this in multi-party litigation all the time, including preventing multiple plaintiffs and multiple interveners from seeking any unilateral discovery at all. So this notion that once an intervener is allowed in, that the intervener will simply be able to do whatever it wants and take the judicial power in different directions, this is why I started out by saying this is this constitutionalization of every intervention motion is a solution in search of a problem. This is simply not a problem in real-world courts. District courts have ample tools to deal with the parade of horribles of having an intervener come in and potentially take the case in different directions

. The argument you're brief, you focus on case or controversy. There has to be a case or controversy. But we have said repeatedly that Article 3 standing is an element of the case or controversy requirement. And so I don't know how you can put Article 3 standing to one side while saying it's okay because we still have a case or controversy. K. So, Article 3 standing is an element of the case or controversy requirement or an interpretation of the case or controversy requirement. But the requirement that this Court has imposed in order to have standing is an interest that is injured, imminently or concretely has been injured, traceability and redressability all with respect to a particular claim and a form of relief, not with respect to things that happen along the way in litigation. K. With respect to a particular party, you don't just ask, is there an injury? You said, has the plaintiff been injured? You don't just ask, is there redressability? You said, is his injury redressed? I don't see how you can just carve off one part of the test for standing. K. Well, I think the reason for carving it off, again, goes back to the purposes of Article 3, which are not to police every single exercise of judicial power. When an amicus comes into court, it potentially introduces a new issue, a new constitutional question. In this case, the government has introduced a rule 24 issue that we've responded to. Each of those is a form of asking the Court to use its power, power to resolve the case a certain way. But we're talking about mandatory intervention. The district would go, intervention must, the court must permit anyone to intervene. And then there's this requirement of, there would be a practical interest and so it seems to me you're going to have to, in order just to protect the courts against party committee, you're going to have to make an inquiry that looks very much like standing anyway. So I think this goes to a key premise of the Petitioner's argument that I want to make sure to clarify. The petitioner is arguing that once an intervener comes in as an intervener of right, as of right, there can essentially be no limits on what that intervener can do. And that's simply not true. The advisory committee notes make clear that restrictions can be placed on interveners as of right. We cite numerous cases in our brief in which courts have recognized that they can limit the discovery of, of interveners as of right. Certainly they can limit them from asserting claims in additional forms of relief. And in fact, courts are used to doing this in multi-party litigation all the time, including preventing multiple plaintiffs and multiple interveners from seeking any unilateral discovery at all. So this notion that once an intervener is allowed in, that the intervener will simply be able to do whatever it wants and take the judicial power in different directions, this is why I started out by saying this is this constitutionalization of every intervention motion is a solution in search of a problem. This is simply not a problem in real-world courts. District courts have ample tools to deal with the parade of horribles of having an intervener come in and potentially take the case in different directions. The post somebody was a plaintiff and was dismissed for lack of standing. That same person could come back into the case as an intervener on that sort of position. In theory, if the person satisfied the requirements for an interest that may be impaired and so forth under Rule 24, then yes, but not just any plaintiff could then come back in as an intervener. Do you have to meet the 24-A requirements of force? Yes. The defendant. Exactly, Justice Ginsburg. The petitioner's contrary theory here that Article III polices every action of every court is contrary to a number of settled principles. One, I mentioned it's contrary to the one point of rule which this Court has applied repeatedly. If it were not possible for a court to issue a judgment even in favor of a plaintiff without standing, then this Court has been wrong for decades to be doing exactly that. Second of all, and I think this goes back to Justice Breyer's point earlier, it would require constructing an entirely new defendant-intervener standing doctrine that whatever it is is not standing as we think of it. If it's a defendant-intervener, first of all, will be injured only if there is a judgment that goes a certain way, and even then will not necessarily actually be harmed by the judgment depending on whether his or her interests actually are impaired. The standard for Rule 24 and invention is simply whether the interest may as a practical matter be impaired. That is not standing, standing requires an actual or an imminent injury, not this conjectural injury. On the defendant's side, I mean, on the, why can't we just say the simple? It's, defendants are there because the Court might affect their behavior to do something they don't want to do or affect their property in a way they don't want. And in a new-intervener on the defendant's side, why not just interpret the rule that way? That's what the government says. It has to show the same. An intervener on the plaintiff's side doesn't have to show anything unless they want something other than the rule. I mean, you have, unless they want something that the plaintiff doesn't want. That's where I started. The government saying interpret the rule this way, and you object to that because? Because Rule 24 and Article 3 serve different purposes as reflected in Rule 24 as distinct language. With respect to the purposes, Article 3 is about ensuring that federal courts do not intervene in controversies absent a live dispute. Rule 24 ensures that once there is a live dispute, once there is a case for controversy, parties whose interests may be affected can participate in order to protect their interests and in order to avoid additional litigation later on. So these are, these are different purposes, and they're reflected in the language of Rule 24, which does not speak in terms of standing. The key point is that Rule 24 allows an intervener to intervene if the intervener's interest may as a practical matter be impaired or impeded. That is different than the stringent requirements for standing, which require an actual or imminent injury, not just may as a practical matter. Traceability and redressability likewise do not track onto the language of Rule 24. For Article 3 standing purposes, you need to have an injury that is traceable to the defendant's conduct

. The post somebody was a plaintiff and was dismissed for lack of standing. That same person could come back into the case as an intervener on that sort of position. In theory, if the person satisfied the requirements for an interest that may be impaired and so forth under Rule 24, then yes, but not just any plaintiff could then come back in as an intervener. Do you have to meet the 24-A requirements of force? Yes. The defendant. Exactly, Justice Ginsburg. The petitioner's contrary theory here that Article III polices every action of every court is contrary to a number of settled principles. One, I mentioned it's contrary to the one point of rule which this Court has applied repeatedly. If it were not possible for a court to issue a judgment even in favor of a plaintiff without standing, then this Court has been wrong for decades to be doing exactly that. Second of all, and I think this goes back to Justice Breyer's point earlier, it would require constructing an entirely new defendant-intervener standing doctrine that whatever it is is not standing as we think of it. If it's a defendant-intervener, first of all, will be injured only if there is a judgment that goes a certain way, and even then will not necessarily actually be harmed by the judgment depending on whether his or her interests actually are impaired. The standard for Rule 24 and invention is simply whether the interest may as a practical matter be impaired. That is not standing, standing requires an actual or an imminent injury, not this conjectural injury. On the defendant's side, I mean, on the, why can't we just say the simple? It's, defendants are there because the Court might affect their behavior to do something they don't want to do or affect their property in a way they don't want. And in a new-intervener on the defendant's side, why not just interpret the rule that way? That's what the government says. It has to show the same. An intervener on the plaintiff's side doesn't have to show anything unless they want something other than the rule. I mean, you have, unless they want something that the plaintiff doesn't want. That's where I started. The government saying interpret the rule this way, and you object to that because? Because Rule 24 and Article 3 serve different purposes as reflected in Rule 24 as distinct language. With respect to the purposes, Article 3 is about ensuring that federal courts do not intervene in controversies absent a live dispute. Rule 24 ensures that once there is a live dispute, once there is a case for controversy, parties whose interests may be affected can participate in order to protect their interests and in order to avoid additional litigation later on. So these are, these are different purposes, and they're reflected in the language of Rule 24, which does not speak in terms of standing. The key point is that Rule 24 allows an intervener to intervene if the intervener's interest may as a practical matter be impaired or impeded. That is different than the stringent requirements for standing, which require an actual or imminent injury, not just may as a practical matter. Traceability and redressability likewise do not track onto the language of Rule 24. For Article 3 standing purposes, you need to have an injury that is traceable to the defendant's conduct. For Rule 24, it simply needs to be related to the subject matter of litigation. Likewise, with redressability for Article 3 purposes, there has to be an ability by a court to directly redress the injury and thereby and bind the defendant to a legal judgment. For purposes of Rule 24, again, it's not that the nexus is not, is different than that. It's simply whether the intervener might potentially be aided in its ability to protect his interest. These are all looser standards than Article 3. Congress has enacted Rule 24 in 1966, but has amended it four times since then, including as recently as 2007. So there's been ample opportunity for Congress, the Advisory Committee, this court reviewing the rule to take account of modern standing doctrine. Yet the language of Rule 24A has been allowed to stand using very different terms than the standing inquiry. And so there's some. Sotom for the sake of argument that because I think as I read the district court's opinion here, they assumed you were asking for a judgment in your name, because they were treating you as a contract vendor or a vendee at home, and they were saying, you don't have the right to have a judgment in your name. Would that holding have been wrong absent your current concession that you are not seeking money in your own name, but just a payment of money? Sotom for the sake of argument. Justice Sotomayor, that was not the state of play before the Second Circuit, and this is just a quote from the palette lawyer in the Second Circuit. There is, quote, exactly one fund, and the town doesn't have to do anything other than turn over the fund. And that's why the Second Circuit correctly found, and this is Petition Appendix 9A, that Loro, quote, asserts the same legal theories and seeks the same relief. Sotomayor, I've asked a different hypothetical. I don't know that the Court below understood your claim that way. So when it ruled, it ruled understanding that you were following your complaint and seeking a judge money in your name. You disavow that in the Second Circuit. They accepted that disavow, and they ruled a slightly different way. I'm saying, if you hadn't, would this be the same case? Sotomayor, if we hadn't, it would be a different case, but I think the Court would have, if it were a different case. Sotomayor, if it were a different case, and we were asking for money in our own name, I think in Article 3, Standing Inquiry would be appropriate in that situation. And for reasons that- So your rule is always an emotion to intervene. There is a standing inquiry. The standing inquiry is whether or not you're asking for relief, um, different from someone with a case or controversy. I would put it slightly differently, which is whether or not there needs to be a standing inquiry. It depends on whether the intervener is seeking relief or asserting a claim different than the existing plaintiff. What's, you said hypothetically

. For Rule 24, it simply needs to be related to the subject matter of litigation. Likewise, with redressability for Article 3 purposes, there has to be an ability by a court to directly redress the injury and thereby and bind the defendant to a legal judgment. For purposes of Rule 24, again, it's not that the nexus is not, is different than that. It's simply whether the intervener might potentially be aided in its ability to protect his interest. These are all looser standards than Article 3. Congress has enacted Rule 24 in 1966, but has amended it four times since then, including as recently as 2007. So there's been ample opportunity for Congress, the Advisory Committee, this court reviewing the rule to take account of modern standing doctrine. Yet the language of Rule 24A has been allowed to stand using very different terms than the standing inquiry. And so there's some. Sotom for the sake of argument that because I think as I read the district court's opinion here, they assumed you were asking for a judgment in your name, because they were treating you as a contract vendor or a vendee at home, and they were saying, you don't have the right to have a judgment in your name. Would that holding have been wrong absent your current concession that you are not seeking money in your own name, but just a payment of money? Sotom for the sake of argument. Justice Sotomayor, that was not the state of play before the Second Circuit, and this is just a quote from the palette lawyer in the Second Circuit. There is, quote, exactly one fund, and the town doesn't have to do anything other than turn over the fund. And that's why the Second Circuit correctly found, and this is Petition Appendix 9A, that Loro, quote, asserts the same legal theories and seeks the same relief. Sotomayor, I've asked a different hypothetical. I don't know that the Court below understood your claim that way. So when it ruled, it ruled understanding that you were following your complaint and seeking a judge money in your name. You disavow that in the Second Circuit. They accepted that disavow, and they ruled a slightly different way. I'm saying, if you hadn't, would this be the same case? Sotomayor, if we hadn't, it would be a different case, but I think the Court would have, if it were a different case. Sotomayor, if it were a different case, and we were asking for money in our own name, I think in Article 3, Standing Inquiry would be appropriate in that situation. And for reasons that- So your rule is always an emotion to intervene. There is a standing inquiry. The standing inquiry is whether or not you're asking for relief, um, different from someone with a case or controversy. I would put it slightly differently, which is whether or not there needs to be a standing inquiry. It depends on whether the intervener is seeking relief or asserting a claim different than the existing plaintiff. What's, you said hypothetically. I'm sorry. You know, okay. A number of Federal prisoners are similar as situated with respect to a claim that they're not being provided food consistent with their religious beliefs. One, brings a claim. He wants relief as to him, because that's what he can seek relief for, right? Okay. Then we have 80 join him. Can they join him so long as they simply say we want him to get his meal, or if they seek meals in their own name, a judgment running as to them, do they have to show standing at that stage? I think it depends on what relief the initial plaintiff is seeking. If he is seeking a declaratory judgment or an injunction invalidating the prison's entire meal program, then I think they can join. If he is seeking an injunction saying he individually is entitled to a particular type of food and they would like that judgment to extend to them, they need at that point standing, because they're asking the defendant to do something different, not only to provide him with particular food, but also to provide it to them, whereas otherwise the defendant would not be free to do that. So I think it requires a careful parsing at the, at the, either on the papers or at the time, to the extent he's seeking relief only in his own name and as applied challenge. If it were an, if it were an as applied challenge, then an additional plaintiff would need to show standing, because the question again is, what is the court ordering the defendant to do? That's the touchstone for the relief. And if an additional plaintiff is asking for different relief, then it requires standing. Thank you, Council. Mr. Cottele, four minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, three points. First, a 24-8-2 mandatory intravener is a full party and can send thousands of recipients as your document requests without the court ever finding out about them. 8-2 cases in which courts have controlled 24-8-2 intraveners. There are not. The court cannot restrict, and this is, you know, what Stringfellows says, it's what you said. I think we were just told that we think when you would have, in practice courts have limited or limited. They can limit it in the same ways they can limit parties, but they can't ban discovery altogether from a party in the welcome they need to intervene. But they can say now, Council, we have lead Council taking these deposition. We're not going to let you take the same deposition. The courts do that all the time. They can do that, but at the point where they are restricting a full party like an intervener from doing anything independently, they're no longer an 8-2 intervener

. I'm sorry. You know, okay. A number of Federal prisoners are similar as situated with respect to a claim that they're not being provided food consistent with their religious beliefs. One, brings a claim. He wants relief as to him, because that's what he can seek relief for, right? Okay. Then we have 80 join him. Can they join him so long as they simply say we want him to get his meal, or if they seek meals in their own name, a judgment running as to them, do they have to show standing at that stage? I think it depends on what relief the initial plaintiff is seeking. If he is seeking a declaratory judgment or an injunction invalidating the prison's entire meal program, then I think they can join. If he is seeking an injunction saying he individually is entitled to a particular type of food and they would like that judgment to extend to them, they need at that point standing, because they're asking the defendant to do something different, not only to provide him with particular food, but also to provide it to them, whereas otherwise the defendant would not be free to do that. So I think it requires a careful parsing at the, at the, either on the papers or at the time, to the extent he's seeking relief only in his own name and as applied challenge. If it were an, if it were an as applied challenge, then an additional plaintiff would need to show standing, because the question again is, what is the court ordering the defendant to do? That's the touchstone for the relief. And if an additional plaintiff is asking for different relief, then it requires standing. Thank you, Council. Mr. Cottele, four minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, three points. First, a 24-8-2 mandatory intravener is a full party and can send thousands of recipients as your document requests without the court ever finding out about them. 8-2 cases in which courts have controlled 24-8-2 intraveners. There are not. The court cannot restrict, and this is, you know, what Stringfellows says, it's what you said. I think we were just told that we think when you would have, in practice courts have limited or limited. They can limit it in the same ways they can limit parties, but they can't ban discovery altogether from a party in the welcome they need to intervene. But they can say now, Council, we have lead Council taking these deposition. We're not going to let you take the same deposition. The courts do that all the time. They can do that, but at the point where they are restricting a full party like an intervener from doing anything independently, they're no longer an 8-2 intervener. But at that point, Justice Kennedy, they are a permissive intervener at best or they're an amici. They're not doing anything, and that gets to, I think, a fundamental point, Justice Kennedy. I don't want to take up your time, but it does seem to me that the district courts have very substantial control over what mandatory parties can do in the way of duplicative and oppressive discovery. But it happens all the time. We don't disagree with that. Our only point is that they have much more power over 24b than they do over A2. And at the point where they are coming in and saying, we're going to do everything exactly the same way, either because the court has imposed that restriction on them or otherwise. They aren't at that point an 8-2 intervener. And that gives rise to, you asked Justice Kennedy, my friend on the other side, what are we giving up? When do we ever need these kinds of interventions? And he gave you two answers, neither of which dealt with the fact that amici and permissive intervention provide for that participation. His first answer was, Trivovich, Trivovich's case in which that union member had Article 3 standing. So, you know, that would have, that wouldn't be screened out by our rule anyway. The second thing he gave you was Clapper and a long thing about our roommate that, you know, might want to have a grievance here, that to me, boomerangs. That shows exactly what our point is. He wants them to raise interveners, A2 interveners, to raise stuff that parties legitimately can't raise because of Article 3 standing. And the only support he can have for that, there's no support in the Constitution. The only support is page 30 of his brief where he's admitting that's what he wants interveners to do. And Justice Breyer, that is what interveners are doing right now. The National County's brief explains that ideological interveners are coming in now concerned by standards like the Sierra Club or CUB for growth, it doesn't matter ideologically, but it's just the point is that that's happening right now because of A2 intervention status and that's why you need some sort of upfront restriction on an authority inquiry. And then this is my last point, which is it gets to the Chief's question about why would you need to have a authority inquiry? And I think the best reason is what the answer to Justice Gorsuch was given. It joined a PENX page 162. It joined a PENX page 162, says they are seeking a pot of money for themselves. That's what the complaint says. Now, my friend now has disclaimed that before this Court. That, by the way, is not the disclaimer before the Second Circuit. The disclaimer before the Second Circuit is we want the same pot of money, but we still want a court order for ourselves. And that is an invocation of judicial power that's exactly what A2 interveners do all the time. And if you accept his rule and you don't have that threshold inquiry, you will allow for this protein shifting of a case to the point where, and I'll just read to you from Joint Epilex page 162, this is what the complaint asked for

. The row plays this phrase of this Court grant judgment against the defendants, awarding it damages and other appropriate relief as follows. A, in a word of compensation for the taking of the lawyer's interest and B, such other and further relief. He's disclaimed, A, I don't know what B is anymore. This can't be the right way for courts to proceed. The right way for courts to proceed is a threshold standing inquiry at the front end, which can find them to party status. Thank you, counsel. The case is submitted