Morrow v. Bentley

Summary

The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of a declaratory-judgment action challenging the use of funds for a Gulf State Park hotel and conference-center project. The court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing in their official capacities as State Auditor and legislator, and declined to consider their taxpayer-standing argument because it had been abandoned or not properly presented to the trial court.

Holdings

1. The plaintiffs' argument that they had standing in their individual capacities as taxpayers was not preserved because they failed to present it to the trial court and expressly abandoned that theory at the hearing.
2. Zeigler lacked standing because the complaint did not allege that the defendants' expenditures interfered with or usurped his statutory or constitutional authority as State Auditor or otherwise caused him a concrete and particularized injury.
3. Morrow lacked standing to challenge the executive branch's alleged failure to comply with previously enacted legislation or alleged usurpation of the Legislature's appropriation power because the alleged injury was institutional and belonged, if at all, to the Legislature as a whole.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the plaintiffs preserved and could assert standing in their individual capacities as taxpayers.
2. Whether Zeigler, as State Auditor, alleged an injury in fact sufficient to confer official-capacity standing.
3. Whether Morrow, as an individual legislator, had standing to challenge executive-branch expenditures allegedly inconsistent with previously enacted legislation and allegedly appropriating funds without legislative authorization.
4. Whether the trial court properly dismissed the declaratory-judgment action for lack of standing.

Disposition

affirmed