LawJurisprudencePublic LawLegal RealismExceptions To ReturnAbandonment DoctrineIntent To Abandon
Generalizations about standing, we have been told, are largely worthless.'Yet one generalization can be made without fear of challenge: the law of standing lacks a rational conceptual framework. 2It is little more than a set of disjointed rules dealing with a common subject. 3"Standing" has no meaning unless the particular doctrines grouped together under that name are identified and then appropriately applied.Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has given us no guidelines for selecting among the rules of standing other than one indicating that standing has failed as an independent part of constitutional law.Nevertheless, the thrust of recent Supreme Court decisions is clear.Decisions on questions of standing are concealed decisions on the merits of the underlying constitutional claim.The Court finds standing when it wishes to sustain a claim on the merits 4 and denies standing when the claim would be rejected were the merits reached. 5 The law of standing has thus become a surrogate for t