*3 BARRON , Circuit Judge . Two unions representing public employees in Puerto Rico together with one of their individual members brought this suit against the United States, the Financial Oversight and Management Board ("FOMB"), and the Commonwealth raising a range of claims under federal constitutional and international law. The claims all concern the legal status of Puerto Rico. The District Court dismissed them because it concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring them under Article III of the federal Constitution. We affirm.
I.
The plaintiffs are two unions, Hermandad de Empleados del Fondo del Seguro del Estado, Inc., and Unión de Médicos de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado Corp., and one of their members, Lizbeth Mercado Cordero. [1] The unions have a combined membership of about two thousand employees, and they have each entered into collective bargaining agreements with CFSE, which is Puerto Rico's State Insurance Fund Corporation.
The plaintiffs brought their suit in May 2018 and filed their second amended complaint on October 5, 2018, against the United States, the FOMB, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The eighty-one-page complaint requests a declaration that the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act *4 ("PROMESA"), see 48 U.S.C. § 2101 et seq., and all of the FOMB's actions taken pursuant to it violate the First, Fifth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution; seeks to "enjoin[] and stay[]" the defendants "from pursuing this and any . . . cases" under PROMESA and from taking any other actions under that law; requests a declaration "overruling the Insular Cases because they instituted an unconstitutional colonial regime"; and requests an order "declar[ing] the existence of an illegal colonial regime that is subject to the procedures enacted by international law to decolonize[] Puerto Rico, under the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, adopted by General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of December 14, 1960."
On the defendants' motions, the District Court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims for declaratory relief for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1). It reasoned that the plaintiffs had failed to allege concrete and particularized injuries that their requested relief could redress. It concluded on this ground that the plaintiffs had "failed to demonstrate that they have standing to pursue their claims." [2] The plaintiffs timely appealed.
II.
Article III limits the judicial power to actual cases
and controversies. See U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. An
actual case or controversy only exists if the plaintiff has
demonstrated "such a personal stake in the outcome of the
controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens
the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely
depends." Baker v. Carr,
"To satisfy the personal stake requirement, [the]
plaintiff must establish each part of a familiar triad: injury,
causation, and redressability." Katz v. Pershing, LLC, 672 F.3d
64, 71 (1st Cir. 2012) (citing Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504
U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)). The redressability element of
constitutional standing requires that the plaintiff show "that a
favorable resolution of [the] claim would likely redress the
professed injury." Id. at 72. That means "it cannot be merely
speculative that, if a court grants the requested relief, the
injury will be redressed." Dantzler, Inc. v. Empresas Berríos
Inventory & Operations, Inc., 958 F.3d 38, 47 (1st Cir. 2020)
(citing Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rts. Org., 426 U.S. 26, 42-43
(1976)). And although the plaintiff "need not demonstrate that
[the] entire injury will be redressed by a favorable judgment,
[the plaintiff] must show that the court can fashion a remedy that
will at least lessen [the] injury." Id. at 49 (citing Antilles
*6
Cement Corp. v. Fortuño,
The plaintiffs contend that the District Court erred in dismissing their suit on Article III grounds in part because their second amended complaint had alleged that "the enactment of laws by the Commonwealth that were incorporated to the Fiscal Plans certified by the FOMB" "inva[ded]" their "pecuniary interest, collective bargaining agreement and property (employment, salaries, bonuses, pensions and health plans)." The laws in question are Acts 66-2014, 3-2017, 8-2017, and 26-2017, each of which the plaintiffs allege "impair[s] . . . labor rights and benefits" that their collective bargaining agreements had previously secured. The fiscal plan in question is the Commonwealth's Fiscal Plan of 2018, certified by the FOMB on June 29 of that year. That plan provides in relevant part that a payroll and hiring freeze for public employees as well as certain restrictions to their healthcare and to their sick and vacation days "must be continued."
The problem with the plaintiffs' contention is that none
of the relief that they seek would prevent any of the laws that
they contend caused them pecuniary harm from continuing to have
full force and effect. For that reason, it is entirely speculative
*7
on this record that any of that relief would spare the plaintiffs
the pecuniary harm that they trace back to those laws. And,
because it is entirely speculative on this record that such relief
would redress the claimed pecuniary harm, that claimed pecuniary
harm provides no support for the plaintiffs' argument that the
District Court erred in dismissing their claims for lack of Article
III standing. See Dantzler,
The plaintiffs do separately contend that they have
standing to seek the relief at issue because PROMESA's constraints
and the FOMB's oversight powers dilute the power of their vote in
elections in Puerto Rico due to the limits that PROMESA and the
FOMB place on the powers of the Puerto Rico government. But, the
plaintiffs do not contend that any of these limits have diluted
their voting power within Puerto Rico vis-à-vis others in Puerto
Rico. Thus, the precedents on which they rely to show that the
burden imposed on their right to vote suffices to secure their
standing under Article III are readily distinguished. See, e.g.,
Baker,
In the end, the plaintiffs are contending that the harm
they have suffered results from the fact that PROMESA and the
*8
FOMB's actions are preemptive of local law. The plaintiffs fail
to explain, however, why this type of harm is not a generalized
grievance of just the sort that cannot suffice the demands of
Article III. See Gill v. Whitford,
The plaintiffs do assert at one point in their briefing that "the fact that they do not have a right to vote for the federal officers who appointed and imposed PROMESA, aggravates their [voting rights] injury." But, even assuming that this assertion is responsive to the concern that the plaintiffs are seeking relief for what is merely a generalized grievance, none of the relief that they seek would redress their injury insofar as it inheres in restrictions in their ability to vote in federal elections. Thus, this argument, too, fails to show that the District Court erred in dismissing their claim on standing grounds.
III.
The issues that the plaintiffs' complaint raises concerning the legal status of Puerto Rico are weighty ones. But, to be fit for adjudication in federal court, they must be raised *9 in a suit that satisfies the requirements of Article III. Because we agree with the District Court that the plaintiffs have not met their burden to satisfy those federal constitutional requirements, we affirm the order dismissing their claims for lack of standing.
Notes
[1] Francisco J. Reyes Márquez was an additional individual plaintiff below, but has since passed away.
[2] The District Court did not reach the defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) arguments.