Wasserman v. Franklin County

Held that federal third-party standing was not compatible with Georgia’s well-settled constitutional standing rule requiring a plaintiff to assert her own rights to maintain an action; therefore, a plaintiff cannot establish constitutional standing in Georgia courts asserting only the rights of third parties not before the court. The doctrine of stare decisis was not a bar to overruling prior precedent that uncritically adopted federal doctrine of third-party standing. The Court’s precedent was an error that wrongly expanded Supreme Court’s own power to hear cases, and on constitutional grounds, third-party standing was far more susceptible to arbitrary application than Georgia’s clear and time-tested rule of constitutional standing, and no reliance interests supported preserving the doctrine, which was imported only 18 years earlier.

Also held that Georgia’s constitutional standing rule is a neutral jurisdictional rule that state courts may apply evenhandedly to federal claims without violating Supremacy Clause; the standing rule is a limitation on the judicial power of Georgia courts, and it does not target or discriminate against federal rights or causes of action in any way.