Disability Law Center v. SG Boulevard Multifamily, 2:23-cv-00146

Plaintiff Disability Law Center (DLC), Utah’s designated Protection & Advocacy agency, employs testers who pose as renters to detect housing discrimination and accessibility violations.
DLC sent testers to City View apartments in St. George, Utah, and alleges FHAA construction/accessibility violations in common areas, dwelling units, and the leasing office.
DLC claims organizational injury: diversion of limited personnel and funds to investigate, monitor, send information requests, travel, and educate renters—frustrating its mission.
Defendants (property owner/manager and builder) moved to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), arguing DLC lacks Article III standing.
The court evaluated whether DLC alleged a concrete, particularized injury traceable to defendants that is redressable—focusing on organizational standing and the “diversion of resources” theory.
Applying the majority approach (following the D.C. Circuit), the court held that expenditures that are litigation-related or part of an organization’s ordinary activities cannot manufacture Article III injury, and granted the motion to dismiss for lack of standing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Organizational standing — diversion of resources	DLC spent staff time and money investigating, monitoring, sending information requests, traveling, and will need to educate renters; these diverted resources from other activities and thus caused concrete injury	DLC’s expenditures were litigation-related or part of its ordinary testing/monitoring mission and therefore cannot create Article III injury	DLC lacks standing: litigation-related spending and routine activities do not constitute cognizable diversion-of-resources injury; dismissal granted
Mission‑frustration as concrete injury	Defendants’ failure to build accessible housing frustrates DLC’s mission and thus causes injury	Frustration of mission is abstract; speculative “someday” intentions do not satisfy concreteness or imminence	Rejected: mission frustration without concrete, imminent impact on DLC’s programs is insufficient for standing

Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363 (1982) (organization may have standing where unlawful conduct forces it to devote significant resources to counteract practices, impairing its services)
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021) (Article III requires a concrete injury even for statutory violations)
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) (concrete and particularized injury required for standing)
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) (Art. III standing elements: injury in fact, causation, redressability)
Spann v. Colonial Village, Inc., 899 F.2d 24 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (an organization cannot manufacture Article III injury by spending resources on the suit itself)
Fair Emp. Council of Greater Wash., Inc. v. BMC Mktg. Corp., 28 F.3d 1268 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (diversion to testing could harm programs, but such harm may be self-inflicted and insufficient for standing)
Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 767 F.3d 247 (3d Cir. 2014) (organizations may not establish injury by expenditures made solely for litigation)