Citizen suits come in three forms. First, a private citizen can bring a lawsuit against a citizen,
corporation, or
government body for engaging in conduct prohibited by the statute. For example, a citizen can sue a corporation under the
Clean Water Act (CWA) for illegally
polluting a
waterway. Second, a private citizen can bring a lawsuit against a government body for failing to perform a non-discretionary duty. For example, a private citizen could sue the
Environmental Protection Agency for failing to promulgate
regulations that the CWA required it to promulgate. In a third, less common form, citizens may sue for an
injunction to abate a potential imminent and substantial endangerment involving generation, disposal or handling of
waste, regardless of whether or not the defendant's conduct violates a statutory prohibition. This third type of citizen suit is analogous to the
common lawtort of
public nuisance.[3] In general, the law entitles plaintiffs who bring successful citizen suits to recover reasonable
attorney fees and other litigation costs.[4]
In 1970, when amending the
Clean Air Act, the
United States Congress was inspired by similar legislation in the
civil rights arena[5] to begin including specific provisions for citizens to bring suit against violators or government agencies to enforce environmental laws. Today, most anti-pollution laws have provisions for citizen suits and they have become a major means of ensuring compliance with environmental laws. Public-interest environmental legal service organizations, such as
Earthjustice and the
Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, often prosecute citizen suits.[6] Some non-environmental statutes, such as the
Americans with Disabilities Act and the
Fair Housing Amendments Act, also contain citizen suit provisions, but the majority of regulatory statutes do not.
Citizens may only bring citizen suits in
federal court if they have
"standing to sue". To establish standing, the courts have required proof of three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an “injury in fact”—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) “actual or imminent, not ‘conjectural’ or ‘hypothetical’”. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be "fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court." Third, it must be "likely", as opposed to merely "speculative", that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision."[7]
Environmental laws that allow citizen suits include:
^See Middlesex City Board of Chosen Freeholders v. New Jersey, 645 F. Supp. 715, 721-22(D.N.J. 1986); see also RCRA Imminent Hazard Authority: A Powerful Tool for Businesses, Governments, and Citizen Enforcers, 24 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. L. Inst.) 10122 (March 1994),
http://www.tulane.edu/~telc/assets/articles/RCRA%20Haz%20ELR_94.pdfArchived 2010-06-01 at the
Wayback Machine
^See Zygmunt J.B. Plater, Facing a Time of Counter-Revolution—The Kepone Incident and a Review of First Principles, 29 U. RICH. L. REV. 657, 701 (1995) (Environmental citizen suit provisions were “[m]odelled after provisions in the civil rights acts . . . .”)