Are civil law cases precedents in common law states? So, Louisiana is a bit of an odd-ball state in that it observes civil law (Napoleonic law). The big difference between common law and civil law is that in civil law, the judge is expected to base his choice on his interpretation of the law, and not based on the decisions made by previous judges in other similar court cases. So, the question is: when a court case is decided in Louisiana, can it establish precedent in other states that follow common law?
The Main Question when a court case is decided in Louisiana, can it establish precedent in other states that follow common law? Yes. The court decisions of a sister state are always persuasive authority. This applies even to trial court rulings and rulings from other countries that are not precedents in any U.S. state. Similarly, courts can look to legal treatises and sources like the Restatements of Law that have not been adopted or approved by any public official as persuasive authority. In theory, it would not even be improper for a state court judge in say, Texas, to quote from a Mock Court Brief of a high school student as persuasive authority. This is because the value of a persuasive authority (as opposed to in state binding authority of an appellate court) in states that follow common law, is that the reasoning of the ruling is intrinsically informative and is reliable because it comes from someone learned in the relevant law and familiar with the legal issues in question. Someone could reasonable dispute persuasive authority from Louisiana on the ground that the substantive law rule in Louisiana expressed in its statutes and prior case law, which a Louisiana court is interpreting, is different from the law in the state where the Louisiana court decision is utilized. For example, suppose that Louisiana has not statutorily adopted the equitable doctrine of laches which is a case law doctrine derived from English courts of equity which denies relief to people who make claims who have slept on their rights without taking legal action in a manner prejudicial to the defendant, even if no statutory statute of limitations applies. If a case allowing relief within the statute of limitations in Louisiana where facts justifying the application of the doctrine of laches were present in an Ohio case, it would be fair to argue that the Louisiana precedent should not be followed as persuasive authority, because Louisiana is a state that has not adopted the doctrine of laches, while Ohio is a state that has adopted the doctrine of laches. But really, this means of distinguishing a Louisiana precedent is no different from the way that a precedent from any other state would be distinguished. Louisiana court precedents are not less persuasive on the theory that a court precedent in Louisiana's court system doesn't have the same effect as a court precedent in states with purely common law legal systems. Furthermore, as explained below, while civil law systems in other countries do not afford the same status to appellate court decisions that common law jurisdictions do, Louisiana, in this regard, is closer to the common law system than it is to the civil law system, in any case. Louisiana Law Is A Complex Civil Law And Common Law Hybrid In practice, Louisiana law is more of a hybrid system, than it is a true civil law state (as it is often described as being). The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 actually preceded the adoption of the French Civil Code in 1804, although the French Civil Code had profound influence on Louisiana law prior to it becoming a U.S. state in 1812, and its early years of U.S. statehood when the federal governments role in law making and providing government services was much narrower. I. Sources Of Law Consistent with its civil law heritage, all law in Louisiana must be rooted in statute and can't be purely dependent upon common law case law. But, Its courts, unlike true civil law states, issue appellate decisions that are binding precedents in common law fashion. Unlike true civil law systems, precedent making case law from appellate courts regarding statutory interpretation is essentially the same in Louisiana as in other U.S. states with a common law heritage. Where the statutes of Louisiana provide a hook for legal rights that aren't fully explained, for example, in tort law, Louisiana courts even sometimes look to the Restatements of the Law which purport to set forth in code-like fashion the common law applicable in other states, to guide the gap filling roles of courts in applying its private law statutes. II. Civil Procedure Civil procedure in Louisiana is a mix of the civil legal process and the common law legal process. In civil procedure, Louisiana has some civil law influences, but is a common law civil procedure biased hybrid system. While it is not compelled by the U.S. Constitution, Louisiana has a right to jury trials in many civil law case. Louisiana's overall civil law system is better characterized as a whole as adversarial than inquisitorial, despite residual civil law influences. III. The Legal Profession The ethical duties of lawyers in Louisiana, likewise, now fully track those of lawyers in other U.S. states. Louisiana has almost completely abandoned any trace of the occupational framework for lawyers and the ethical standards for lawyers found in civil law countries that differ from those of U.S. common law jurisdictions. For example, Louisiana does not have the ethical rule for lawyers found in most civil law jurisdictions forbidding lawyers from representing someone in a matter in which a previous law has done work for which the previous lawyer has not be paid. Likewise, Louisiana does not have the strict regulation of lawyer contact with witnesses prior to their presentation of testimony to a court that is found in most civil law jurisdictions but is absent in U.S. common law jurisdictions. Similarly, notaries in Louisiana were originally closer to the civil law model but the role of notaries has eroded in the common law notary direction over time (not necessarily completely however). IV. Private Law The substantive private civil law in Louisiana (i.e. the non-criminal law that can be raised in lawsuits between non-governmental parties such as contract law, tort law, property law, inheritance rights, marital property, guardianship, customary units for real property boundaries, etc.) tends to track the French Civil Code adopted a year after the Louisiana purchase (and the pre-French Civil Code law that applied during French rule), rather than English common law. For example, usufructs exist in Louisiana law but are unknown in common law jurisdictions. Bit by bit, distinctive Louisiana legal concepts such as the &quot;mystic will&quot; have been repealed or fallen into desuetude, however. Until about the 1840s, Louisiana's laws governing slavery and interracial relationships followed the customs and practices established under French rule which were quite different from the practices of the English adopted in the colonial period in the United States. But in the decade or two before slavery was abolished in Louisiana this began to shift markedly in the direction of other southern and for a while Confederate, states in the United States and away from the French model, curtailing greatly, for example, the rights of &quot;free people of color&quot; in the state. This said, however, many provisions of private law that are present in other U.S. states have been adopted wholesale in Louisiana. For example, Louisiana has adopted the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Fraudulent Transfers Act, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, and &quot;no fault&quot; divorce. Many parts of private law, such as the law of union-management relationships and arbitration are governed by federal law in a common law mold. Louisiana has also, in civil law fashion, statutorily codified legal concepts not present in civil law countries like trust law in order to coordinate functionally with trust law in other U.S. states. Likewise, there are many major modern legislative developments in civil law countries generally, and French law, in particular, were not imitated by Louisiana. For example, France has adopted innovated ways to recognize relationships short of marriage that Louisiana has not copied, such as civil solidarity pacts (PACS) and some minimal legal rights associated with cohabitation known in French as a concubine relationship status. V. Criminal Law Criminal law in Louisiana is much closer to the common law adversarial system than the civil law inquisitorial system, for example, in part as a consequence of U.S. Constitutional limitations on state criminal procedure. VI. Public Law Public law in Louisiana (i.e. the law governing the relationship of individuals with the government) almost entirely tracks the common law pattern and not the civil law pattern, in part, due to the influence of U.S. Constitutional law and federal statutes (e.g. 42 U.S.C. § 1983). Footnote On Puerto Rico A Hybrid That Is Primarily A Civil Law System Puerto Rico became in U.S. territory in 1898 in connection with the Spanish-American War, at a time when its civil law institutions were much more developed than those of Louisiana in 1803, has remained Spanish speaking while still subject to U.S. federal law, and is not as integrated into the U.S. legal system as Louisiana and other U.S. states in its current Commonwealth status (which may face another referendum on its status soon under a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. House on December 15, 2022). As a result, while Puerto Rico must make some concessions to the U.S. Constitution which incorporates common law legal institutions like the right to a jury trial in criminal cases, it is much closer to the European (and in particular, the Spanish) civil law legal system than Louisiana. However, importantly, federal courts in Louisiana operate using the common law based federal rules of procedure, criminal and civil, and apply common law based substantive federal law. Note On Sources This answer is based predominantly on snippets here and there of encounters with Louisiana law, reviews of surveys of state laws in various areas, history books, historical fiction that is well researched with respect to law, new accounts, and other similar sources gathered piecemeal from memory. I'm not an expert in this area and there may be minor inaccuracies that I will correct if I learn of them, but in the land of the blind, the one eye'd man is king, so I'm offering insight into the subject greater than the vast majority of educated lay people and even the vast majority of U.S. lawyers outside Louisiana.
It is the lower courts' interpretation of a senior court's judgment&mdash;specifically the ratio&mdash;that determines what is the precedent. If a court doesn't want its opinion to bind lower courts, it can be clear in its judgment that this is not what was intended. For example, a court could say that this judgment turns on the particular facts of this case, and should be interpreted narrowly by lower courts. Alternatively, a previous precedent could be narrowed by a later judgment of a senior court if it was later felt that the ratio was being applied too widely. (I have read examples of the explicitly narrow ratio, but haven't been able to find any today)
Generally speaking, British courts, when making judgments on constitutional matters regard themselves as interpreting existing law, rather than creating new law. But technically speaking, any legal precedent established by a court can be interpreted as "creation of new law". For the avoidance of doubt, the sources of law in the law of England and Wales include: statute law, constitutional convention, prerogative powers, common law, and legal commentary. I may have missed some out and may edit those in later. Common law refers to the judgments of courts. So here we come to your question: Several legal principles and precedents were established by this judgment, and you may consider this new "law": The court held that prerogative powers are justiciable - courts can limit the scope of these powers The prerogative power in question had limits. It can be limited when its use has an extreme detrimental effect on the democracy of the UK and parliamentary sovereignty. What is important with point one is that the court recognised that this power has always existed, stemming as far back as the bill of rights in the 17th century. As such, the court is implying that it is creating nothing new, but recognising a law that has always existed. You will see a LOT of this when studying constitutional law.
I'm curious as to how the US legal system determines who should present evidence and how much evidence is required by them to prove one side of an argument against a counterargument. In General In both criminal and civil cases in common law legal systems (legal systems derived from the English legal system, basically, the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), the burden of proof is on the party seeking to have a court do something. So, if the absence of evidence, the party seeking relief loses. Proof Of The Elements Of The Charge Or Cause Of Action Presentation of Evidence and the Prima Facie Case The party seeking court action presents their evidence first. If at the close of their opening case that party has not presented enough evidence to meet their burden of proof with respect to every "element" of the list of legal elements that they must prove to prevail in court, that party has not established a "prima facie case" and the case is dismissed without granting relief. If the prosecution or party bringing a civil case establishes a prima facie case, or if the defense does ask to have the case dismissed for failing to establish a prima facie case at the close of the evidence of the party asking the court to do something, then the defense presents their evidence if the defense wishes to do so (this is optional). (If the defense does present evidence, the prosecution or civil party seeking relief can then present a rebuttal case to disprove the new points of evidence in the defense case, and so on, back and forth until all evidence is taken.) Evaluating The Evidence In Light Of The Burden Of Proof Once both the party asking the court to do something and the defense have presented all of their evidence, the trier of fact (i.e. the jury in a jury trial, or a judge in a bench trial) decides if every element of the case of the party asking the court to do something has been established by the relevant burden of proof. In a civil case, the burden of proof is usually a "preponderance of the evidence" (i.e. that the evidence more strongly favors that the element was established than that it was not established); some elements on some claims in civil cases must be established by the higher standard of "clear and convincing evidence." In a criminal case, the burden of proof is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". Affirmative Defenses In addition to elements of a case that must be established to make a prima facie case, there are also "affirmative defenses" to a request that a court do something. Examples of affirmative defenses include self-defense, statute of limitations, immunity from suit, a pardon in a criminal case, etc. A defendant can win ether by showing that the party asking the court to do something has failed to meet their burden of proof with respect to one or more elements of the case, or by showing that an affirmative defense bars the request. In both criminal cases and civil cases, the burden is on the defense to show that there is at least some evidence that justifies consideration of an affirmative defense. This is called a "burden of production." In a civil case (and in some criminal cases in some jurisdictions), the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove an affirmative defense by preponderance of the evidence. In some criminal cases in some jurisdictions, once the defense has met a burden of production with regard to an affirmative defense, the prosecution must rule out the affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt to prevail. Deciding Who Wins Once both the party asking the court to do something and the defense have presented all of their evidence, the trier of fact (i.e. the jury in a jury trial, or a judge in a bench trial) decides if an affirmative defenses prohibit the party asking the court to do something from prevailing. The party asking the court to do something wins unless the defense can show that this party did not meet the burden of proof as to any one element of a particular criminal charge or civil cause of action (for each charge or cause of action), or that an affirmative defense bars that particular charge or cause of action. Often cases have conflicting testimony regarding what happened. The jury (or judge in a bench trial) can choose to belief that one person is telling the truth and that the other statement is either a lie or is unintentionally inaccurate for some reason. If the jury (or judge in a bench trial) isn't at all sure whose statement is true and whose is not, this favors the defendant if one is not more credible than the other. Complex Cases In a simple case, there is just one charge or cause of action, and there is just one defendant. But, often, there are multiple charges or causes of action, and each one must be evaluated as to each defendant of the multiple defendants in a single trial. In a civil case, sometimes there are counterclaims that defendants are trying to prove against plaintiffs, or cross-claims that defendants or counterclaim defendants are trying to prove against each other that have to be evaluated. Also, in civil cases, sometimes one or more of the defendants is also prosecuting one or more separate causes of action against someone other than the original plaintiffs or co-defendants. In that case, that defendant is also a third-party plaintiff, and someone other than the original plaintiff and defendants is a third-party defendant (third-party defendants can also bring third-party counterclaims against the third-party plaintiff, third-party crossclaims against third-party codefendants, or their own claims against new parties or against the original plaintiffs). Other Rules Special Statutes Regarding Proof Of Facts Sometimes, there are particular kind of facts for which a statute says that a "prima facie case" is established automatically if a certain kind of evidence is presented. For example, it is common for the law to say that a prima facie case regarding ownership of real estate, or the status of a bus as a school bus, is established by presenting a copy of an official document that says so. Usually, when a statute says something like that, the prima facie case can still be overcome, for example, by presenting a subsequent document that shows that the real estate was then sold to someone else, or that the school bus status of the bus was later revoked. But, when a statute like that is present, the plaintiff or prosecutor doesn't have a duty to prove the negative that there was no subsequent sale of the real estate or that the school bus status certificate was still in force on the date of the incident. Rules of Evidence There are also "rules of evidence" that govern what kind of facts can be presented at a trial to prove a case. For example, in a U.S. criminal trial a fact cannot be established with evidence that is hearsay, such as an affidavit or a statement that a witness heard someone else say and is retelling to the court. A very important rule of evidence in U.S. criminal trials that flows from the United States Constitution, is the evidence obtained by law enforcement illegally may not be presented by the prosecution, even if it definitively shows that a defendant is guilty. This is called the "exclusionary rule." Application To Facts Is it up to the prosecution to present full and complete evidence that the system only takes pictures when the bus is stopped (presumably reviewing source code or conducting tests) or is there some kind of legal concept of "good enough at a glance" evidence where they've met some minimum burden of proof that the picture is taken when the system is turned on and it's only on when the bus is stopped, therefore it must be functioning as expected? The prosecution has to convince the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) that every element of the crime as define in the statute has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt and that any affirmative defense upon which the defense meets a burden of production has been overcome by the relevant burden of proof. Usually, this is a broad legal standard, and the jury (or judge in a bench trial) has to decide if the burden of proof has been met by the facts presented which were legally admissible as evidence. It wouldn't be uncommon for a defendant to present no new evidence in a defense case (other than having cross-examined the prosecution's witnesses) and merely argue at the completion of the prosecution's case that the evidence presented didn't establish a particular element of the prosecution's case beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, the defense might argue that the picture presented by the prosecution was not taken when the bus was at a complete stop, and if the prosecution didn't present some convincing evidence that the bus was at a complete stop when the picture was taken (e.g. the testimony of the bus driver and other witnesses), the defense should win. But, it is almost always up to the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) to decide if the prosecution's evidence is good enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution proved the case. Often a defendant will not want to call any witnesses beyond the witnesses presented in the prosecution case, because a defendant's witness might cause the jury to overcome its doubt that a fact only weakly proved by the prosecution was actually true, for example, when only one not very credible prosecution witness had testified regarding the same fact. If the identical case were presented to two different juries, one jury could decide to believe the bus driver who said that the bus was at a stop when the picture was taken, and a different jury could decide not to belief the bus driver, and both decisions would be valid. Consequences Of A Verdict If the judge or jury acquits the defendant in a criminal case, the case is over and there is no appeal. If the jury is hung (there is no unanimous ruling to convict or acquit (but see endnote)), in a criminal case, there is a mistrial and the defendant can be tried again. If the jury convicts, one of the grounds for an appeal by the defendant is that the evidence was insufficient to prove some element of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, and if the appellate court agrees than the conviction is overturned and there can be a retrial (or in some cases, the defendant is acquitted). Appellate Review Of The Sufficiency Of The Proof The law recognizes that different juries could interpret exactly the same facts in different ways and will reverse a conviction because the burden of proof was not met only if "no reasonable jury" could have interpreted the evidence in a manner consistent with a conviction. For example, on appeal, an appellate court will always assume that the jury thought that every pro-defendant witness, whose credibility was questioned in any way by the prosecution, was lying and that the jury believed that every pro-prosecution witness was telling the truth, even if the defense presented evidence that could have caused a reasonable juror to question the truthfulness of a prosecution witness. Appeals for failure to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt can be easier in a bench trial than in a jury trial because following a bench trial the judge will often publicly state the actual reasons in terms of findings of fact and law that the judge used to reach a conclusion. So, the defendant need only show that a key fact actually found by the judge was not supported by the requisite proof. END NOTE Oregon State, and prior to 2019, Louisiana, did not require juries in all criminal cases to be unanimous.
The custom is that the person who brings the case is named first. This will be the plaintiff in a civil case. But when the plaintiff wins, and the defendant appeals, the case in the appeals court may have that person (often referred to in older cases as the "defendant appellant") named first. More recent practice is to keep the name of the case the same. But it used to be considered a separate case with a separate name in some jurisdictions. In any event, this is merely a custom, and not a law. The court has discretion to name cases as it chooses in its judgements, and if a court chooses for whatever reason to follows a practice that differs from the usual one, that is the name of that particular case. Without a full citation or a link, so that the actual opinion could be consulted, three is no way to know what reason, if any, there was for the order of parties in the particular case mentioned in the question. A quick Google search did not turn up the case.
When a judge decides a case there will be An order - e.g. &quot;Smith shall pay Jones £100,000&quot; Reasons for the decision - i.e. a description of the evidence, and the judge's findings of fact and legal reasoning. Sometimes a party, even though they have completely won, is nevertheless aggrieved by some things the judge has said in the Reasons (or in the way the judge has handled the trial - e.g. the judge's interventions). For example the judge may have said that the winning party was not a credible witness but they nevertheless won because of the evidence of other witnesses who were found to be credible. The rule in England and Wales is that you can only appeal orders. So if the order is completely in your favour you cannot appeal just because you don't like the reasons.
Unless you are an ambassador or one of the US states, SCOTUS doesn't have original jurisdiction over your lawsuit, so they can't hear it either. If you've named all the judges of all the courts that do have jurisdiction, then one of them will handle it anyway, under the doctrine of necessity noted before. For cases that do fall within the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, a jury trial is theoretically possible, but it appears it has not occurred since the 1790s, and only one has surviving records: Georgia v. Brailsford in 1794. See &quot;Special Juries in the Supreme Court&quot; by Lochlan F. Shelfer, Yale Law Journal 123:1, 2013-2014. Otherwise, non-jury original jurisdiction cases are usually delegated to a special master, a sort of &quot;contract judge&quot; who hears all the evidence and recommends a judgment that the full court typically rubber-stamps.
UPDATE: There is now a definitive answer. There Is No Binding Judicial Precedent Adjudicating The Key Standing Issues Raised That Are Factually Squarely On Point This is a novel argument. To my knowledge, this is the first time that any state has ever sought judicial relief arising from another state's election administration, so it is a case of first impression not directly governed by a factually similar precedent. Thus, rather than being governed by a precedent that resolved the exact standing question presented, we must result to more general principles. Because it is a novel argument, it is impossible to be completely sure how it will be resolved. General Considerations In Standing Law The General Rule Standing requirements require that there be a particularized actual injury to a legally recognized interest of the person suing. Standing is a subcomponent of subject matter jurisdiction. Standing is one of the things that must be present for a court to have subject matter jurisdiction. Standing is evaluated with reference to the merits. It exists if there is a recognized legal theory which, if proven, there has been a particularized injury to the person bringing the claim. Most standing cases involve legal claims for relief that it is clear that someone validly has and the question is whether this particular person can assert them. But a minority of standing cases involve the question of whether there is a recognized legal claim of the type asserted at all. No one has standing to assert a non-justiciable claim (i.e. a claim beyond the jurisdiction of all courts), or a claim for relief for which the courts do not legally recognize a remedy (e.g. a claim for not being chosen by a particular person to marry). As a result, standing can overlap with the argument that someone has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Generalized Grievances Don't Impart Standing Even if the law is perfectly clear that a law has been violated, that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone has standing to seek a remedy from a court for that violation of the law. To the extent that one has merely a generalized grievance shared in common with everyone (e.g. an interest in a correct outcome of a Presidential election, or a desire to have the government follow the law) that would not ordinarily suffice to establish standing. Texas does not have an interest in the outcome of a Pennsylvania or Georgia Presidential election that is any different from the interest of a citizen of Texas or me, a citizen of Colorado. But citizens of a state other than the one in which the election was conducted who aren't candidates in that election clearly don't have standing to challenge the outcome of an election in another state. If the Texas argument for standing is accepted, any voter in any state would have standing the contest the election results of every other state in every Presidential election (although not in the original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court). The Argument For Standing Offered By Texas And Its Flaws The Texas Argument For Standing The Complaint argues for standing as follows in paragraph 18: In a presidential election, “the impact of the votes cast in each State is affected by the votes cast for the various candidates in other States.” Anderson, 460 U.S. at 795. The constitutional failures of Defendant States injure Plaintiff States because “‘the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.’” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 105 (2000) (quoting Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 555 (1964)) (Bush II). In other words, Plaintiff State is acting to protect the interests of its respective citizens in the fair and constitutional conduct of elections used to appoint presidential electors. The Bush v. Gore Precedent Doesn't Establish Standing Here But Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 105 (2000) (quoting Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 555 (1964)) (Bush II) relied upon in the Complaint is not on point. Indeed, Reynolds v. Sims (which established a one man, one vote principle for state and local legislative redistricting) expressly recognized that the federal constitution would be illegal if a parallel system like the electoral college or U.S. Senate were enacted at the state level, but declined to hold that the 14th Amendment invalidated this portion of the U.S. Constitution (in part, because a valid constitutional amendments can't alter the equal representation of a U.S. state in the U.S. Senate without its consent). Bush v. Gore likewise was an intrastate election dispute alleging that the equal protection rights of voters in one part of a state were abridged by the voters in another part of the state having different election rules applied to them in a lawsuit between two candidates in the race who clearly did have standing (although not original jurisdiction standing in the U.S. Supreme Court, which is limited with other exceptions inapplicable here, to lawsuits between two states). The Claim That Texas Has A Legally Cognizable And Justiciable Interest In The Overall Result Of A Presidential Election Is Unprecedented And Dubious The Complaint's assertion that in a presidential election, the impact of the votes cast in each State is affected by the votes cast for the various candidates in other States, citing Anderson, is also problematic. First of all isn't technically true. The United States has 51 elections for Presidential electors, it doesn't have a &quot;Presidential election&quot; of ordinary voters. Perhaps an elector has standing to assert vote dilution, but an elector voting in that election, or a candidate, but they are not U.S. states and as a result, they can't bring lawsuits in the U.S. Supreme Court's constitutional original jurisdiction. In the same way, Texas can't sue Florida alleging that a U.S. Senate or U.S. House election in Florida was conducted incorrectly, because every U.S. Senate or U.S. House election impacts which party has a majority in that house of Congress. Instead, the Constitution, recognizing that the courts offered no national judicial election remedy to people outside a state with a disputed election, created a legislative one by vesting resolution of disputed Congressional elections in Congress, rather than the Courts. Hundreds of disputed Congressional elections have been adjudicated that way. Indeed, the only case of a genuinely disputed Presidential election outcome, the election of 1876, which is the closest precedent, is one in which Congress, rather than the Courts resolved the dispute regarding the overall Presidential election result based upon allegations of irregularities in a particular state. One of the leading U.S. Supreme Court bar members concurs with this analysis: Texas has no legal right to claim that officials elsewhere didn't follow the rules set by their own legislatures. The United States doesn't have a national election for president. It has a series of state elections, and one state has no legal standing to challenge how another state conducts its elections any more than Texas could challenge how Georgia elects its senators, legal experts said. &quot;This case is hopeless. Texas has no right to bring a lawsuit over election procedures in other states,&quot; said SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who argues frequently before the court. Second of all, it is irrelevant. Anderson didn't authorize one state to sue another state over its administration of an election. Even if the outcome of elections in other states have a de facto impact on other states, this doesn't mean that Texas has a legally cognizable interest in how another state selects its electors which is reserved to the legislature of the other state under the constitution. There are no precedents for one state having a legally recognized interest in the outcome of another state's election. It did not participate in the election as a voter or an administrator of that election or as a candidate. It doesn't even cast a vote for President in any case, the electors that it elected do that. The votes of the Texas electors are not diluted by the existence of electors in other states beyond the status quo expectation with no wrongdoing. Texas gets the same number of electoral votes relative to the total number of votes cast, regardless of who the electors of four other states cast their votes supporting. There is no allegation that another state got too many electoral votes. In contrast, Texas might have standing to sue if it was allocated just 12 electoral votes, when, the census results showed that it was actually entitled to 38 electoral votes. Being denied the right to cast the full number of electoral votes that Texas gets to cast probably is an actual injury and does not hinge on how another state administers its election of its Presidential electors. Links to the briefs filed by each of the four defendant states found here further detail the standing analysis in addition to other arguments. For example, Michigan summarizes its standing argument as follows: Texas lacks standing to bring its Electors Clause claim where its asserted injury is nothing more than a generalized grievance that the Clause was violated. The standing section in the Georgia brief explains that: Texas lacks Article III standing to pursue its claims. Texas alleges two types of injuries—a direct injury to the State and a supposed injury to its Electors, whom Texas seeks to represent in a parens patriae capacity. Neither is cognizable. A. Texas argues that it has suffered a direct injury because “the States have a distinct interest in who is elected Vice President and thus who can cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.” Mot. for TRO 14–15 (emphasis in original); see also id. at 15 (arguing that a “Plaintiff State suffers an Article III injury when another State violates federal law to affect the outcome of a presidential election”). Under governing precedent, that is not an injury in fact. A State—like any plaintiff—has standing only if it alleges an injury that is actual or imminent, concrete, and particularized. See Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560); see also id. (injury in fact is the “[f]irst and foremost” of the standing elements) (quoting Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 103 (1998)). But Texas has no cognizable interest specific to Texas in how the Vice President votes. Texas’s interest is in its own representation in the Senate; Georgia has not impaired that interest. Texas still has two Senators, and those Senators may represent Texas’s interests however they choose. Even by its own logic, Texas has suffered no injury. In any event, Texas’s speculation that the Vice President may one day cast a tie-breaking vote is not a cognizable injury. . . . Indeed, certain Vice Presidents—Mr. Biden, for example—never cast a tie-breaking vote during their tenure. Texas’s alleged injury is not the type of imminent, concrete, or particularized injury that Article III demands. See Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 410 (2013) (a “threatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact” (quoting Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 158 (1990))); id. (standing theory that “relies on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities[] does not satisfy the requirement that threatened injury must be certainly impending”). Texas’s alleged injury is also not cognizable because it is a generalized grievance—the kind of injury “that is ‘plainly undifferentiated and common to all members of the public.’” Lance v. Coffman, 549 U.S. 437, 440– 41 (2007) (quoting United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 176–77 (1974)); id. (The only injury plaintiffs allege is that the law—specifically the Elections Clause—has not been followed. This injury is precisely the kind of undifferentiated, generalized grievance about the conduct of government that we have refused to countenance in the past.”); see also Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1923 (2018) (the alleged injury must be “distinct from a ‘generally available grievance about government’” (quoting Lance, 549 U.S. at 439)). The injuries that Texas alleges on behalf of its citizens are injuries that would be common to not only every citizen of Texas, but also every citizen of every state. Cf. Lance, 549 U.S. at 440 (“To have standing . . . a plaintiff must have more than a general interest common to all members of the public.” (quoting Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633, 633 (1962))). And in all events, by Texas’s logic any State would have standing to pursue the alleged claims because every State purportedly “suffers an Article III injury when another State violates federal law to affect the outcome of a presidential election” (Mot. for TRO 15). So Texas’s injury is specific neither to its citizens nor to Texas as a State. An injury unique to no one is not an injury in fact. Texas cites no case supporting its assertion that it has suffered an injury in fact. Texas cites Massachusetts v. Envtl. Prot. Agency for the proposition that “states seeking to protect their sovereign interests are ‘entitled to special solicitude in our standing analysis’” (Mot. for TRO 15 (citing 549 U.S. 497, 520 (2007)), but Texas strips that language of its context. The Court there explained that Massachusetts was entitled to “special solicitude” in the standing analysis because a State has a quasi-sovereign interest in “preserv[ing] its sovereign territory” and because Congress had afforded “a concomitant procedural right to challenge the rejection of its rulemaking petition as arbitrary and capricious.” Massachusetts, 549 U.S. at 519–20; see also Gov’t of Manitoba v. Bernhardt, 923 F.3d 173, 182 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (explaining context of the Court’s reasoning). Neither thing is true here. In any case, Massachusetts involved a State’s loss of coastal property from rising sea levels, which is nothing like Texas’s alleged injury (a speculative tie-breaking vote by the Vice President). Texas has not alleged a direct injury in fact. B. Nor does Texas have standing to raise claims for its electors in a parens patriae capacity (cf. Mot. for TRO 15). A State may sue parens patriae only if it proves that it has Article III standing (see, e.g., Bernhardt, 923 F.3d at 178), which Texas hasn’t done. But even if it had, Texas would lack parens patriae standing because that concept applies only when a State seeks to vindicate the interests of more than a discrete and identifiable subset of its citizens (most often in the health and welfare contexts). See, e.g., Alfred L. Snapp &amp; Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico, 458 U.S. 592, 607 (1982) (“[M]ore must be alleged than injury to an identifiable group of individual residents . . .”); Pennsylvania v. New Jersey, 426 U.S. at 665 (a State may not sue parens patriae when it is “merely litigating as a volunteer the personal claims of its citizens”). Here, Texas purports to represent the interests of only thirty-eight people (its Electors). But Texas’s problems run even deeper. This Court has explained that “[o]ne helpful indication in determining whether an alleged injury to the health and welfare of its citizens suffices to give the State standing to sue as parens patriae is whether the injury is one that the State, if it could, would likely attempt to address through its sovereign lawmaking powers.” Alfred L. Snapp &amp; Son, 458 U.S. at 607; see also Bernhardt, 923 F.3d at 178 (same). That is not the case here. Under our federalist system, Texas could never “address through its sovereign lawmaking powers” how another State elects its Electors. Texas lacks parens patriae standing. C. Texas also lacks standing because it asserts the rights of third parties. A plaintiff generally “cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties” unless the plaintiff establishes (1) a “close” relationship with the third party and (2) a “hindrance” preventing the third party from asserting her own rights. Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U.S. 125, 129–30 (2004). Otherwise, the plaintiff fails to present a “particularized” injury. See Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1548; see also Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 502 (1975) (“Petitioners must allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the class to which they belong and which they purport to represent.”). . . . The Eleventh Amendment bars Texas citizens from bringing such claims against Georgia in federal court, so Texas cannot circumvent that bar when asserting such individual rights in a parens patria capacity. See Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. 439, 465 (1945) (“By reason of the Eleventh Amendment the derivative or attenuated injuries of that sort are not enough for standing. See, e.g., Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 708 (2013) (“It is, however, a ‘fundamental restriction on our authority’ that ‘[i]n the ordinary course, a litigant must assert his or her own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.’” (quoting Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 410 (1991)). The Pennsylvania opposition brief's section on standing explains that: Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the federal courts to resolving “cases” and “controversies.” U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2; Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818 (1997). That same jurisdictional limitation applies to actions sought to be commenced in the Court’s original jurisdiction. Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 735-36 (1981). To establish standing, the demanding party must establish a “triad of injury in fact, causation, and redressability.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 103 (1998). More specifically, that the plaintiff has suffered injury to a legally protected interest, which injury is “fairly traceable to the challenged action and redressable by a favorable ruling.” AIRC, 576 U.S. at 800; see also Maryland, 451 U.S. at 736. This Court has “always insisted on strict compliance with this jurisdictional standing requirement.” Raines, 521 U.S. at 819. For invocation of the Court’s original jurisdiction, this burden is even greater: “[t]he threatened invasion of rights must be of serious magnitude and it must be established by clear and convincing evidence.” People of the State of N.Y. v. New Jersey, 256 U.S. 296, 309 (1921). Texas fails to carry this heavy burden. First, Texas cannot establish it suffered an injury in fact. An injury in fact requires a plaintiff to show the “invasion of a legally protected interest”; that the injury is both “concrete and particularized”; and that the injury is “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1548 (2016). According to Texas, the alleged violations of Pennsylvania’s Election Code undermined the authority granted to the Pennsylvania General Assembly under the Electors Clause.8 Motion at 3, 10-11, 13-15. But as the text of the Electors Clause itself makes clear, the injury caused by the alleged usurpation of the General Assembly’s constitutional authority belongs to that institution. AIRC, 576 U.S. at 800 (legislature claimed that it was stripped of its responsibility for redistricting vested in it by the Elections Clause). The State of Texas is not the Pennsylvania General Assembly. See Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, __ U.S. __, 139 S.Ct. 1945, 1953 (2019) (noting the “mismatch between the body seeking to litigate [the Virginia House of Delegates] and the body to which the relevant constitutional provision allegedly assigned exclusive redistricting authority [the General Assembly]”). Second, Texas’s claimed injury is not fairly traceable to a violation of the Electors Clause. As discussed above, each of Texas’s allegations of violations of Pennsylvania law has been rejected by state and federal courts. Third, Texas fares no better in relying on parens patriae for standing. It is settled law that “a State has standing to sue only when its sovereign or quasi-sovereign interests are implicated and it is not merely litigating as a volunteer the personal claims of its citizens.” Pennsylvania, 426 U.S. at 665. The state, thus, must “articulate an interest apart from the interests of particular private parties.” Alfred L. Snapp &amp; Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico, ex rel., Baez, 458 U.S. 592, 607 (1982). In other words, “the State must be more than a nominal party.” Ibid. That, however, is exactly what Texas is here. Texas seeks to “assert parens patriae standing for [its] citizens who are Presidential Electors.” Motion at 15. Even if, as Texas claims, the presidential electors its citizens have selected suffered a purported injury akin to the personal injury allegedly sustained by the 20-legislator bloc in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 438 (1939), which they did not, that does not somehow metastasize into a claim by the state rather than those presidential electors. The 20-person bloc of legislatures in Coleman sued in their own right without the involvement of the State of Kansas. Ibid. Texas has no sovereign or quasi-sovereign interest at stake. It is a nominal party, at best. 8 In its motion, Texas disclaims a “voting-rights injury as a State” based on either the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses. Motion at 14. Rather, Texas claims that its legally protected interest arises from “the structure of the Constitution” creating a federalist system of government. Ibid. As discussed infra, to the extent Texas relies on the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, those “Clauses protect people, not States.” Pennsylvania, 426 U.S. at 665. Wisconsin's standing arguments are as follows: At a minimum, to invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction, Texas must demonstrate that it has “suffered a wrong through the action of the other State.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 735–36 (1981). But Texas is unable to allege that Wisconsin itself did anything to directly injure Texas’s sovereign interests. Instead, Texas advances a far more attenuated theory of injury—that the other States’ supposed violations of their elections laws “debased the votes of citizens” in Texas. Mot. for P/I at 3. This speculative logic is not nearly enough to carry Texas’s burden to prove, by “clear and convincing evidence,” a “threatened invasion of [its] rights” “of serious magnitude,” New York, 256 U.S. at 309. Indeed, Texas’s allegations fall far short of what would be required by Article III in any federal case—that is, a showing that a plaintiff has “(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant[s], and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016). It is well settled under the Court’s original jurisdiction cases that “a State has standing to sue only when its sovereign or quasi-sovereign interests are implicated and it is not merely litigating as a volunteer the personal claims of its citizens.” Pennsylvania v. New Jersey, 426 U.S. 660, 665 (1976). Apart from attempting to rely on the “personal claims of its citizens” as electors or voters, Texas struggles to identify any traditional sovereign injury to support its claim under the Electors Clause. Instead, Texas proposes that this Court recognize a new “form of voting-rights injury”—an injury premised on the denial of “‘equal suffrage in the Senate’” somehow caused by the election of the Vice President. Mot. for Prelim. Inj. at 14 (quoting U.S.Const. art. V, cl. 3). Texas makes no freestanding constitutional claim to this effect. In any event, this argument makes no sense. Texas does not (and cannot) argue that it now has fewer Senators than any other state. By definition, therefore, it maintains “equal suffrage in the Senate.” Texas’s attempt to garner standing for its claims under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses fares no better. These “Clauses protect people, not States.” Pennsylvania, 426 U.S. at 665. If Texas’s theory of injury were accepted, it would be too easy to reframe virtually any election or voting rights dispute as implicating injuries to a States and thereby invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction. New York or California could sue Texas or Alabama in this Court over their felon-disenfranchisement policies. . . . . This case does not satisfy the direct-injury requirement. Texas speculates that Wisconsin’s facilitation of mail-in voting during the pandemic may have increased the likelihood that third parties would engage in instances of voter fraud in Wisconsin. Texas does not offer a shred of evidence that any such fraud occurred. And Texas does not allege that Wisconsin directed or authorized any individual to engage in voter fraud. Nor would any such allegation be plausible. In any event, this Court long made clear that its original jurisdiction does not extend to “political disputes between states arising out of [the alleged] maladministration of state laws by officials to the injury of citizens of another state.” Stephen M. Shapiro, et al, Supreme Court Practice 10-6 (11th ed. 2019); see Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U.S. 1, 15 (1900)) (“Jurisdiction over controversies of that sort does not embrace the determination of political questions, and, where no controversy exists between states, it is not for this Court to restrain the governor of a state in the discharge of his executive functions in a matter lawfully confided to his discretion and judgment.”). It is hard to imagine a case that more clearly runs afoul of that principle than a dispute over the outcome of the presidential election, premised on the alleged maladministration of state election law. The Existence Of A Legally Cognizable Interest Needs To Be Evaluated In The Context Of The U.S. Constitution As A Whole The question of first impression concerning whether a state has a legally cognizable interest in the administration of an election in another state needs to be evaluated in the context of the U.S. Constitution as a whole. The Constitution says a fair amount about election administration and disputed elections that in context disfavors the notion that one state has a legally cognizable interest in how another state administers an election administration. All federal elections in the United States (outside the District of Columbia) are administered by the states and by the local governments and agencies created by the states. State election laws must conform to federal requirements, and candidates participating in elections or voters in that state have standing in many cases to litigate whether those state and federal laws were conformed to by state election administrators. Each election of electors is separate and prior to 1852, Presidential elections weren't even held on the same day even though the Congress had the authority to mandate a single Presidential election date. The process of determining a total outcome of the election by aggregating state electoral college votes is vested in Congress by the constitution, not in the judicial branch, and so there can be no legally cognizable interest in this non-justiciable issue. Therefore, not only does Texas lack standing to bring this suit on the theory asserted that Texas is injured by an aggregation of electoral votes including votes allegedly made by improperly certified electors. No one has standing to do so in any court of law.