Getting Exercised at the Courthouse

Today the Court heard oral argument on Defendant's Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings in Open Source Yoga Unity v. Bikram Choudhury.  About 15 OSYU members and supporters showed up to hear the case.  Jim Harrison and I appeared for OSYU.   At the beginning of the argument, the Court suggested she was "on the fence" about whether OSYU's members were really members of the organization at the time the suit was filed.  At the end of the argument, however, she stated that she was inclined to rule that there were sufficient indicia of membership to find standing.   The case is under submission and we await an order.  
The issue of whether represented parties are really "members" of an organization suing on behalf of them rarely arises.  Usually, if someone says she is a member, the inquiry turns to whether the member's injury is sufficient to support standing.  Only one "member" of the group need allege injury for the organization to have standing.  In the important Hunt case, the issue only arose because the organization was a state agency, not a traditional "membership" organization, and there the Court still found that it represented its constituents interests and could therefore sue on their behalf.  We directed the court to other cases in which the organization suing was informally run, or ignored corporate formalities, or had changing, voluntary membership but was still held to have standing.  When we get an order from the Court, I will post it.