Among the flurry of decisions climaxing the last two weeks of its 1978 term, the United States Supreme Court in Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc.¹ affirmed the constitutionality of the Price-Anderson Act,² which limits private liability for accidents resulting from the operation of federally licensed nuclear power plants. The Court reversed a district court's declaration that the Act was unconstitutional and void,³ finding no support for the conclusion that the Act deprived plaintiffs, a group residing in the vicinity of the defendant's⁴ nuclear reactor, of their Fifth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

In one sense, the opinion may be significant less for the actual result reached than for the road not taken: had the Act been voided, the effect might have been to add the last straw to the back of the beleaguered nuclear industry. Industry spokesmen have asserted for 20 years that without a limitation on liability for catastrophic accidents private development of nuclear energy could not survive.⁵ On the other hand, there is legal significance in the mere fact that the Court found plaintiffs to have standing to bring the suit. The intricate factual setting of the case required the majority to travel a lengthy and circuitous route through the foundations of the modern law of standing and federal jurisdiction in order to reach the merits. In so doing, the Court found avenues around its prior standing decisions which were not previously apparent.