The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Nov. 2 in Spokeo v. Robins, a Fair Credit Reporting Act case that will address whether a person may bring a lawsuit when a company violates a federal privacy law.
A ruling that Congress can’t create a statutory right to sue without evidence of a concrete harm raises serious separation-of-powers concerns, Professor Heather Elliott told Bloomberg BNA.
“That ruling would significantly cut into Congress’s power to respond to many social problems, including environmental problems,” Elliott told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail. “The court would make itself the sole arbiter of what kinds of harms count for purposes of constitutional jurisdiction.”
“If the court ruled against Mr. Robins in this case, there could be some future case where the court says you can’t sue even if Congress gives you the right to, because in our view, you weren’t factually harmed,” she said.