Flast v. Cohen
Case Date: 07/22/1968
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Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83 (1968),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case holding that a taxpayer has standing to sue the government to prevent an unconstitutional use of taxpayer funds.
In 1923 the Supreme Court decided in Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447 (1923), that a taxpayer did not have standing to sue the federal government to prevent expenditures if her only injury is an anticipated increase in taxes. In 1968 Florance Flast joined several others in filing suit against Wilbur Cohen, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, contending that spending funds on religious schools violated the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion. The district court denied standing, and the Supreme Court heard the appeal.
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