Kansas City Power & Light Co. v. McKay
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
225 F.2d 924 (1955)
Kansas City Power & Light Company and other private power companies (plaintiffs) supplying electricity in three states sued the Secretary of the Interior and two federal agencies (defendants) to stop the federal government from funding competing federal power cooperatives, arguing the government's contracts with those cooperatives violated two federal statutes. The plaintiffs' own claimed injury, though, was simply that they would have to compete with the federal cooperatives if those contracts were allowed to proceed - the government hadn't regulated the plaintiffs, forced them to curtail operations, or imposed any duties on them directly. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of standing since the plaintiffs weren't parties to the contracts they were challenging.
Whether, under the Administrative Procedure Act, a party has standing to challenge a federal administrative action when the action causes the party to suffer a legal wrong or to be adversely affected or aggrieved within the meaning of a relevant statute.