In its landmark 1972 decision in Sierra Club v. Morton,¹ the Supreme Court ruled that an organization may establish standing to sue on behalf of its members who have suffered actual or threatened injury to a protected interest notwithstanding the lack of any injury to the organization itself.² While in that case the Court held that the Sierra Club lacked standing to sue, the crucial factor in its determination was clearly the absence of any allegations that the federal action at issue would cause "injury-in-fact" to the plaintiff's members.³ After cosmetic amendment to its pleadings, the group was permitted to pursue the litigation on behalf of those members with an identified stake in the outcome. Ever since, when environmental and other public interest organizations, suing solely as the representatives of their constituents, have challenged federal agency action, standing contests have tended to focus on the character and sufficiency of the injuries alleged by the individuals on whose behalf those organizations have claimed to be suing.⁴

A federal district court ruling in Washington, D.C., recently opened a new and as yet largely unexplored area of organizational standing law, however, by inquiring into the exact character of the relationship between such groups and the injured individuals they purport to represent. On March 13, 1979, Judge John Sirica held, in Health Research Group v. Kennedy,⁵ that two public interest groups lacked standing to sue on behalf of their financial contributors and supporters because they did not have a substantial representational nexus with those individuals. In essence the ruling was based on the fact that the plaintiffs had no formally designated members and that their contributors and supporters did not elect the groups' directors. Public interest litigating groups view the decision as an ominous signal that an additional set of standing hurdles regarding the representational adequacy of their organizational structures is being erected at the federal courthouse door.