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Director of the Office of State Lands & Investments v. Merbanco6/6/2003
ic rule but one that must be applied with some view to realities as well as practicalities. Standing should not be construed narrowly or restrictively. Further, as said in Residents of Beverly Glen, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 1973, 34 Cal. App. 3d 117, 109 Cal. Rptr. 724, 727 [(citations omitted)]: "In recent years there has been a marked accommodation of formerly strict procedural requirements of standing to sue and even of capacity to sue where matters relating to the 'social and economic realities of the present-day organization of society' are concerned. Accordingly, we have seen a retreat from... formalism and rigidity...."
Washakie County School District Number One v. Herschler, 606 P.2d 310, 317 (Wyo. 1980) (some citations omitted).
In this case, the state's claim of no standing focuses on the lack of final action, and, thus, the state argues no injury has occurred. This approach fails to consider the essential nature of the challengers' interests and whether those interests are sufficient to provide standing for the various parties.
As to the standing of WEA, Mr. Johnston, and the Johnston children, they claim a potential injury because the state's position authorizing exchanges without public auction will directly affect the revenue available to the permanent school fund. In Washakie, we held school children and their parents had a sufficient interest in the funding of public education to maintain a challenge to the constitutionality of the statutes providing for the same.
Educating the youth of our state is an important function performed by our state government. Our constitution, as we shall see, plainly expresses the commitment of a free people to the value of a thorough education. The school districts and the members of school boards are charged with the responsibility of providing education to the children of Wyoming and are tangibly injured if the statutes which guide their hands disenable them from so providing. Parents are keenly concerned and suffer tangible injury if their children do not receive a proper education. The children themselves are, obviously, tangibly injured if they do not uniformly receive the best education that tax resources can provide. With these considerations in mind, we hold that each of the named appellants has standing to sue under the circumstances of this case. Id.
A similar analysis and result are appropriate when considering the standing of WEA, an organization of persons involved and interested in public education. Although we have held that the nature of the interests of school children and their parents may meet the standing requirement in matters relating to equality in funding public schools, we still must consider whether the potential impact of less funding on WEA's members and the Johnstons is sufficient to create standing. While revenues from school lands are constitutionally and statutorily dedicated to support education, those funds provide a relatively small portion of the total funds provided for public schools. No showing was made that the funding provided by the legislature for schools would be inadequate without the interest from the permanent school fund. Furthermore, given the statutory requirement that any exchange must be on a "value for value basis," Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 36-1-111(a) (LexisNexis 2001), it seems unlikely that an exchange of lands would negatively impact the funds available for the support of education in any significant amount. However, WEA argues the significance of the impact on the permanent fund is obvious because a bid of $36.48 million was to be paid upon transfer of the land. We believe evaluating the impact on the permanent fund is the appropriate approach and
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