## Facts

- Private plaintiffs (a Texas community bank and two advocacy organizations) and attorneys general from multiple states filed a facial constitutional challenge to provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act.
- The challenge targeted: (1) Title X creating the CFPB (single Director, for-cause removal, independent funding, and related regulatory authority); (2) Title I creating FSOC and its authority to designate certain firms as systemically important; and (3) Title II creating the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) and an FDIC receivership mechanism for certain failing firms.
- Private plaintiffs alleged present and future burdens from CFPB regulation and enforcement, asserted organizational-resource injuries tied to their missions, and challenged the legality of the CFPB Director’s recess appointment.
- Private plaintiffs also alleged that FSOC’s SIFI designation authority created potential future regulatory burdens and market effects.
- State plaintiffs alleged that OLA could disadvantage states (including as potential creditors or investors) compared to bankruptcy proceedings and raised Bankruptcy Clause and due process objections.
- Federal defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6), arguing lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs alleged a concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury sufficient for Article III standing to challenge Titles I, II, and X and the CFPB Director’s appointment.
2. Whether the claims were ripe where asserted harms depended on future discretionary actions (e.g., FSOC designations, OLA initiation, CFPB enforcement).
3. Whether the court could reach the constitutional merits absent standing and ripeness.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to dismiss.
- The private plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge Titles I and X and the CFPB Director’s appointment.
- The state plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge Title II’s OLA.
- The claims were also unripe because they depended on contingent future events and no concrete application of the challenged authorities to plaintiffs.
- The court dismissed the complaint without reaching the substantive constitutional challenges.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing requires a plaintiff to show injury-in-fact (concrete and particularized; actual or imminent), causation, and redressability.
- A plaintiff cannot establish standing through speculative future harms or by incurring costs to avoid uncertain future enforcement.
- Organizational standing is not satisfied by abstract disagreement with government policy or generalized impairment of an organization’s mission.
- Ripeness bars adjudication where claims rest on contingent future events that may not occur; limited hardship from waiting supports dismissal.
- Federal courts must confirm Article III jurisdiction before deciding broad facial constitutional attacks on statutory schemes.

## Conclusion

The court treated the suit as a justiciability dispute and dismissed sweeping constitutional challenges to Dodd-Frank because plaintiffs alleged no concrete, imminent injury and the asserted harms depended on uncertain future application of the statute, leaving the merits unresolved.


State Nat'l Bank of Big Spring v. Lew, 958 F. Supp. 2d 127 (D.D.C. 2013)