The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez resolved fundamental constitutional questions about what a plaintiff must do to establish standing to bring a federal lawsuit. The Court held that to do so, a plaintiff must have suffered a “concrete” injury, and it clarified the standard for determining whether an alleged injury is sufficiently concrete.

With this decision, the Court did much to untangle the complex knot of interpretation and precedent that sprang up following its earlier, 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. This white paper features a deep dive into the Spokeo and TransUnion decisions, the Supreme Court’s reasoning in each case, its roots in the Anglo-American legal tradition and the American Founding, and the implications of TransUnion for civil litigation generally.

---