I just received a few questions concerning the doctrine of standing. Here are my efforts at a few answers.
QUESTION: Regarding mootness, for example in Los Angeles v. Lyons, if I remember correctly, an injunction could not be granted because the case would become moot and there was little chance of Lyons being placed in a chokehold again. Why can't the plaintiff just always sue for compensatory damages then to avoid having his case declared moot?
ANSWER: Actually, mootness was not a problem in Lyons. Rather, the problem was standing, and specifically it was redressability. The Court held that the injunction would not redress the plaintiff's harm because, as you point out, he could not show that the injunction would do anything to redress his injury. (Factually, he could not show that he was likely to be subjected to another chokehold.) Mootness technically refers to circumstances where standing existed at the beginning of the lawsuit but went away at some point thereafter, typically because the plaintiff no longers had an injury or the relief requested could no longer redress the injury. Lyons does not fit this description because the plaintiff never had standing, at any point, to pursue an injunction.
As to your broader point: couldn't the plaintiff simply avoid the problem (even if it is not a mootness problem) by seeking damages? Sure. But he cannot seek an injunction. I'm not sure this avoids the problem if what he really wants is an injunction.
QUESTION: If we read about a potential first amendment violation in the news, such as a judge erecting slabs of 10 commandments in front of the court, this seems like a generalized grievance question. But if no individual citizen can speak out about it in the courts, how do we address the issue? (legislature?) Do we have to wait for someone to sustain an injury-in-fact? Because I've always wondered why a person must present, like in Lujan the plaintiff had to have a ticket showing she would physically see the animals again, to have sustained an injury-in-fact. Why does a person have to be there physically? Can't the same injury effect be felt by person who merely hears it or knows about it through a different source (like the news)?
ANSWER: Well, I guess the candid answer is because the Court said so. As your question suggests, there is nothing in Article III that clearly defines a "case" or "controversy." The Court has held, however, that it requires the plaintiff to have an injury in fact that is actual or imminent and concrete and particularlized. Why? I guess for the reasons stated in Lujan. In essence, if merely reading in the newspaper that the government has acted unlawfully were sufficient, then all 310 million of us could sue anytime we hear about the govornment doing something we think is illegal. Aside from the possibility that this might subject virtually every governmental action to legal challenge, it would involve the judiciary in the constant monitoring of executive action. More generally, we do have a mechanism other than litigation for changing the behavior of government when it affects all of us more less equally: elections and the political process. As I understand the subtext of your question, this can seem a bit random in certain applications. Person A might be much more offended by the Ten Commandments, but Person B walks in front of them, and only Person B has Article III standing. True enough; that seems a legitimate critique of the rule. By the same token, almost all legal rules, when applied to the marginal case, produce some odd results. I'm not sure that really undermines the idea that plaintiffs must be affected by the allegedly unlawful activity in a more particular way than the public at large. Rather, it might simply go to how we determine the particularity of the injury.