Jeff Gaslin v. Shelly Fassler

Jeff M. Gaslin filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint alleging that defendants violated his Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when they ignored his objection to his ex-wife receiving public funds to care Tor their physically disabled child. The district court 1 granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, and Gaslin appeals. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

Because Gaslin did not suffer any injury in fact, he lacked standing to bring his claims in federal court. See Huggins v. FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc., 566 F.3d 771, 773 (8th Cir. 2009) (sua sponte consideration of jurisdictional issues); Jewell v. United States, 548 F.3d 1168, 1172 (8th Cir. 2008) (plaintiff must establish subject matter jurisdiction, for which standing is prerequisite; standing requires “injury in fact,” i.e., actual or imminent concrete and particularized invasion to legally protected interest; injury must be fairly traceable to challenged action of defendant and redressable by favorable decision). Specifically, we fail to see how defendants’ conduct affected any property or liberty interest belonging to Gaslin, see Young v. City of St. Charles, 244 F.3d 623, *580 627 (8th Cir. 2001) (analysis of procedural and substantive due process claims begins with examination of interest allegedly violated); and the Ninth Amendment does not create substantive rights beyond those conferred by governing law, see Martinez-Rivera v. Sanchez Ramos, 498 F.3d 3, 9 (1st Cir. 2007).

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment, but we modify the dismissal to be without prejudice.