8
MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC
THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment
tels, LLC v. Laufer, 601 U. S. 1, 10 (2023) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (“To have standing, a plaintiff must
assert a violation of his [own] rights”). In fact, under our
First Amendment overbreadth doctrine, a plaintiff need not
be injured at all; he can challenge a statute that lawfully
applies to him so long as it would be unlawful to enforce it
against others. See United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762,
769 (2023).
Facial challenges also distort standing doctrine’s redressability requirement. The Court has held that a plaintiff has
standing to sue only when his “requested relief will redress
the alleged injury.” Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 103. With a facial challenge, however, a plaintiff seeks to enjoin every application of a statute—including ones that have nothing to
do with his injury. A plaintiff can ask, “Do [I] just want [the
court] to say that this statute cannot constitutionally be applied to [me] in this case, or do [I] want to go for broke and
try to get the statute pronounced void in all its applications?” Morales, 527 U. S., at 77 (opinion of Scalia, J.). In
this sense, the remedy sought by a facial challenge is akin
to a universal injunction—a practice that is itself “inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the
power of Article III courts.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585 U. S.
667, 713 (2018) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see Department
of Homeland Security v. New York, 589 U. S. ___, ___–___
(2020) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in grant of stay) (slip op.,
at 2–3); FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S.
367, 402 (2024) (THOMAS, J., concurring).
Because deciding the constitutionality of a statute as applied to nonparties is not necessary to resolve a case or controversy, it is beyond a federal court’s constitutional authority. Federal courts have “no power per se to review and
annul acts of Congress on the ground that they are unconstitutional. That question may be considered only when the
justification for some direct injury suffered or threatened,
presenting a justiciable issue, is made to rest upon such an