Panel debates bill to tighten legal standing rules; ACLU warns of curtailed access to courts

Senate Bill 395, introduced by Sen. Daniel Emmerich, would raise the legal requirements for standing by emphasizing the need for an injury or a likelihood of injury and by preventing standing that rests solely on public importance or speculative harms.

Emmerich told the committee the measure is intended to restore a constitutional injury-based standard: “You either have to demonstrate you are injured or you are likely to become injured,” he said, adding the bill was designed to prevent what he characterized as overly elastic standing standards that could flood courts with suits.

Opponents — including Al Smith of the Montana Trial Lawyers Association and Henry Seaton of the ACLU of Montana — argued the bill would restrict long-standing doctrines that permit courts to hear claims that are likely to recur or that raise issues of public importance, such as civil-rights and systemic-challenge litigation. “This prevents citizens and organizations from challenging unlawful government actions because of how extremely narrow the scope of injury can be,” Seaton said.

Committee members pressed the sponsor and opponents for concrete case citations and discussed practical effects on declaratory-judgment and trust actions, as well as how courts handle motions to dismiss for lack of standing. The sponsor said legal review produced no constitutional note and that the bill preserves mechanisms to grant standing when other laws provide it.

The hearing record shows sustained debate but no committee disposition in the transcript; members asked the sponsor for specific examples of cases the bill would address.