California v. Sierra Club
1981 U.S. LEXIS 21, 451 U.S. 287, 68 L. Ed. 2d 101 (1981)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
A private right of action will not be implied from a federal statute if the statutory language and legislative history indicate it was enacted to benefit the general public through a regulatory scheme, rather than to confer rights upon a specific class of individuals.
Facts:
- The California Water Project (CWP) is a large-scale system designed to transport water from northern California to the more arid central and southern parts of the state.
- The CWP stores water and releases it into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where federal and state pumping plants divert it into canals for transportation southward.
- This diversion process allows saline water from the Pacific Ocean to intrude into the Delta, which can degrade the quality of the water being diverted.
- To mitigate this, the State of California proposed building a 42-mile Peripheral Canal to carry high-quality water directly to the pumping plants, bypassing the Delta.
- The Sierra Club, a commercial fisherman named Hank Schramm, and a Delta landowner named William Dixon alleged that the existing and proposed water diversions harm them by degrading the Delta's water quality.
- These parties claimed that the water diversion facilities constituted an unauthorized "obstruction" to the navigable capacity of the waters in violation of federal law.
- Several public water agencies had long-term contracts with the State to purchase water from the project and had incurred substantial financial obligations in reliance on those contracts.
Procedural Posture:
- The Sierra Club, Hank Schramm, and William Dixon sued federal and state officials in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
- Several state water agencies were permitted to intervene as defendants.
- The District Court held that the plaintiffs had an implied private cause of action under § 10 of the Act and ruled on the merits that the water facilities required permits.
- The State of California and the intervening water agencies appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s finding that a private cause of action existed.
- The State of California and the water agencies petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which was granted.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, which prohibits the creation of obstructions in navigable U.S. waters without congressional authorization, create an implied private right of action for individuals allegedly injured by a violation?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice White
No. Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 does not provide an implied private right of action. Applying the four-factor test from Cort v. Ash, the Court finds no congressional intent to create a private remedy. First, the statute was not enacted for the 'especial benefit' of a particular class; its language is a general proscription intended to benefit the public at large by empowering the federal government to regulate navigable waters. Second, the legislative history is silent regarding a private remedy and instead indicates Congress's intent was to grant enforcement power to the federal government in response to the Court's decision in Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch. Since the first two factors, which focus on congressional intent, are dispositive and show no intent to create a private remedy, it is unnecessary to analyze the remaining factors.
Concurring - Justice Stevens
No. While he agrees with the majority's conclusion, he writes separately to note that if he were writing on a 'clean slate,' he would find an implied remedy. He believes the 1899 Congress would have assumed that courts would follow the common law maxim 'ubi jus, ibi remedium' ('where there is a right, there is a remedy') and imply a private right of action. However, the Court has since established the Cort v. Ash analytical framework, and it is more important to adhere to that established precedent. Because the Cort analysis correctly applied by the majority compels the conclusion that no private cause of action exists, he concurs.
Concurring - Justice Rehnquist
No. He agrees with the Court's judgment that there is no implied right of action because Congress was not concerned with individual rights and showed no intent to create a private remedy. His only disagreement is with the majority's emphasis on the Cort v. Ash framework. More recent decisions have clarified that the Cort factors are merely guides for the central task of ascertaining legislative intent, not a rigid, four-part test to be mechanically applied in every case. The ultimate and dispositive question is simply whether Congress intended to create a private remedy, and when the statutory language and history provide a clear answer, the inquiry should end there.
Analysis:
This decision significantly narrowed the doctrine of implied private rights of action, shifting the focus of the Cort v. Ash test decisively toward congressional intent. It established that the absence of explicit intent to create a private remedy in the statute's text or legislative history is largely dispositive, making it much more difficult for private plaintiffs to enforce federal statutes that lack an express private enforcement provision. The case reflects a broader trend of judicial restraint, prioritizing legislative supremacy and curtailing the judiciary's role in creating remedies not explicitly provided by Congress. This has had a lasting impact on statutory interpretation and access to federal courts for plaintiffs in areas like environmental and civil rights law.
