In Warth, various organizations and individuals in Rochester, New York sued the affluent suburb of Pennfield to enjoin enforcement of an exclusionary zoning ordinance (a local law imposing land use rules – minimum lot sizes, maximum density, etc. – that effectively excluded any moderate income housing from the town). The Supreme Court denied the assertion of standing by people of low and moderate income and as members of minority groups. The Court said it was necessary to resolve the question:

whether petitioners' inability to locate suitable housing in Penfield reasonably can be said to have resulted, in any concretely demonstrable way, from respondents' alleged constitutional and statutory infractions. Petitioners must allege facts from which it reasonably could be inferred that, absent the respondents' restrictive zoning practices, there is a substantial probability that they would have been able to purchase or lease in Penfield and that, if the court affords the relief requested, the asserted inability of petitioners will be removed.

We find the record devoid of the necessary allegations. one of these petitioners has a present interest in any Penfield property; none is himself subject to the ordinance's strictures; and none has even been denied a variance or permit by respondent officials. [Here,] by their own admission, realization of petitioners' desire to live in Penfield always has depended on the efforts and willingness of third parties to build low- and moderate-cost housing. [But] the record is devoid of any indication that [were] the court to remove the obstructions attributable to respondents, such relief would benefit petitioners. Indeed, petitioners' descriptions of their individual financial situations and housing needs suggest precisely the contrary—that their inability to reside in Penfield is the consequence of the economics of the area housing market, rather than of respondents' assertedly illegal acts.

Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion replied, among other things, that petitioners:

cannot be expected, prior to discover and trial, to know the future plans of building companies, the precise details of the housing market in Penfield, or everything which has transpired in 15 years of application of the Penfield zoning ordinance, including every housing plan suggested and refused. To require them to allege such facts is to require them to prove their case on paper in order to get into court at all, reverting to the form of fact pleading long abjured in the federal courts.

In another section of the opinion, the Court set forth standards for determining when a plaintiff has standing to assert the rights of a third party:

The petitioners who assert standing on the basis of their status as taxpayers of the city of Rochester present a different set of problems. These ‘taxpayer-petitioners' claim that they are suffering economic injury consequent to Penfield's allegedly discriminatory and exclusionary zoning practices. Their argument, in brief, is that Penfield's persistent refusal to allow or to facilitate construction of low- and moderate-cost housing forces the city of Rochester to provide more such housing than it otherwise would do; that to provide such housing, Rochester must allow certain tax abatements; and that as the amount of tax-abated property increases, Rochester taxpayers are forced to assume an increased tax burden in order to finance essential public services.

‘Of course, pleadings must be something more than an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable.’ United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S., at 688. We think the complaint of the taxpayer-petitioners is little more than such an exercise. Apart from the conjectural nature of the asserted injury, the line of causation between Penfield's actions and such injury is not apparent from the complaint. Whatever may occur in Penfield, the injury complained of—increases in taxation—results only from decisions made by the appropriate Rochester authorities, who are not parties to this case.

But even if we assume that the taxpayer-petitioners could establish that Penfield's zoning practices harm them (Cf. United States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669, 688—690 (1973). But see Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 127—129 (1973)), their complaint nonetheless was properly dismissed. Petitioners do not, even if they could, assert any personal right under the Constitution or any statute to be free of action by a neighboring municipality that may have some incidental adverse effect on Rochester. On the contrary, the only basis of the taxpayer-petitioners' claim is that Penfield's zoning ordinance and practices violate the constitutional and statutory rights of third parties, namely, persons of low and moderate income who are said to be excluded from Penfield. In short the claim of these petitioners falls squarely within the prudential standing rule that normally bars litigants from asserting the rights or legal interests of others in order to obtain relief from injury to themselves. As we have observed above, this rule of judicial self-governance is subject to exceptions, the most prominent of which is that Congress may remove it by statute. Here, however, no statute expressly or by clear implication grants a right of action, and thus standing to seek relief, to persons in petitioners' position. In several cases, this Court has allowed standing to litigate the rights of third parties when enforcement of the challenged restriction against the litigant would result indirectly in the violation of third parties' rights. See, e.g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 188 (1973); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 481 (1965); Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249 (1953). But the taxpayer-petitioners are not themselves subject to Penfield's zoning practices. Nor do they allege that the challenged zoning ordinance and practices preclude or otherwise adversely affect a relationship existing between them and the persons whose rights assertedly are violated. E.g., Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U.S., at 237; NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 458—460 (1958); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 368 U.S., at 534—536. No relationship, other than an incidental congruity of interest, is alleged to exist between the Rochester taxpayers and persons who have been precluded from living in Penfield. Nor do the taxpayer-petitioners show that their prosecution of the suit is necessary to insure protection of the rights asserted, as there is no indication that persons who in fact have been excluded from Penfield are disabled from asserting their own right in a proper case (See generally Sedler, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii in the Supreme Court, 71 Yale L.J. 599 (1962). Cf. Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U.S. 809, 815—817 (1975).). In sum, we discern no justification for recognizing in the Rochester taxpayers a right of action on the asserted claim.