Taxpayer Suit in the United States

Legal action brought by a citizen to challenge a particular governmental expenditure. A taxpayer suit attempts to establish standing to sue through the injury suffered by the citizen as a taxpayer. Taxpayer status is generally sufficient in state courts to establish standing to sue. While the taxpayer suit is possible in federal court, it is much more difficult to satisfy standing requirements.

See Also

Challenge (Civil Process) Standing (Civil Process) Test Case (Civil Process).

Analysis and Relevance

Standing to sue requires that the plaintiff to a legal action has suffered direct and legal injury. The taxpayer suit is based upon the idea that such injury comes from the payment of money to the public treasury. If taxpayer status easily satisfied the standing requirement, then virtually anyone could challenge any expenditure of public money. It is for this reason that the Supreme Court restricted taxpayer suits in Froihingham v. Mellon (262 U.S. 447: 1923), ruling that no taxpayer suffered sufficiently individualized injury to establish standing. For several decades, Frothingham categorically precluded federal taxpayer suits. An important modification was made in 1968 in the Court’s decision in Flast v. Cohen (392 U.S. 83: 1968). Flast established the so-called “nexus” rule, which allows taxpayer challenges so long as a nexus or connection exists between taxpayer status, the particular program under challenge, and a specific constitutional limit on such government spending. In the Flast case, the taxpayer challenged a particular congressional spending action on First Amendment establishment of religion grounds, a circumstance sufficient to create the nexus needed to qualify for an exception to the Frothingham doctrine.

Notes and References

1. Definition of Taxpayer Suit from the American Law Dictionary, 1991, California