political questions, standing "focuses on the party seeking to get his complaint before a federal court and not on the issues he wishes to have adjudicated." Id., at 99. As we reiterated last Term, the standing question in its Art. III aspect "is whether the plaintiff has 'alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' as to warrant his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify exercise of the court's remedial powers on his behalf." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 498 499 (1975) (emphasis in original). In sum, when a plaintiff's standing is brought into issue the relevant inquiry is whether, assuming justiciability of the claim, the plaintiff has shown an injury to himself that is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. Absent such a showing, exercise of its power by a federal court would be gratuitous and thus inconsistent with the Art. III limitation.16

Respondents brought this action under § 10 of the APA, 5 U. S. C. § 702, which gives a right to judicial review to any person "adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute.' In Data Processing Service v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150 (1969), this Court held the constitutional standing requirement under this section to be allegations which, if true, would establish that the plaintiff had been injured in fact by

16 This Court often has noted that the focus upon the plaintiff's stake in the outcome of the issue he seeks to have adjudicated serves a separate and equally important function bearing upon the nature of the judicial process. As stated in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962), a significant personal stake serves "to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult. . . questions."

17 "A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to iudicial review thereof." 5 U. S. C. § 702.

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Opinion of the Court

the action he sought to have reviewed. Reduction of the threshold requirement to actual injury redressable by the court represented a substantial broadening of access to the federal courts over that previously thought to be the constitutional minimum under this statute.18 But, as this Court emphasized in Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 738 (1972), "broadening the categories of injury that may be alleged in support of standing is a different matter from abandoning the requirement that the party seeking review must himself have suffered an injury." See also United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 194 (1974) (POWELL, J., concurring). The necessity that the plaintiff who seeks to invoke judicial power stand to profit in some personal interest remains an Art. III requirement. A federal court cannot ignore this requirement without overstepping its assigned role in our system of adjudicating only actual cases and controversies.1o It is according to this settled principle that the allegations of both the individual respondents and the respondent organizations must be tested for sufficiency.

A

We note at the outset that the five respondent organizations, which described themselves as dedicated to

18 The previous view can be found in Kansas City Power & Light Co. v. McKay, 96 U. S. App. D. C. 273, 281, 225 F. 2d 924, 932 (1955). See Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 733 (1972).

19 The Data Processing decision established a second, nonconstitutional standing requirement that the interest of the plaintiff, regardless of its nature in the absolute, at least be "arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated" by the statutory framework within which his claim arises. See 397 U. S., at 153. As noted earlier, respondents in this case claim that they, and of course their particular interests involved in this suit, are the intended beneficiaries of the charitable organization provisions of the Code. In view of our disposition of this case, we need not consider this "zone of interests" test.

promoting access of the poor to health services, could not establish their standing simply on the basis of that goal. Our decisions make clear that an organization's abstract concern with a subject that could be affected by an adjudication does not substitute for the concrete injury required by Art. III. Sierra Club v. Morton, supra; see Warth v. Seldin, supra. Insofar as these organizations seek standing based on their special interest in the health problems of the poor their complaint must fail. Since they allege no injury to themselves as organizations, and indeed could not in the context of this suit, they can establish standing only as representatives of those of their members who have been injured in fact, and thus could have brought suit in their own right. Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 511. The standing question in this suit therefore turns upon whether any individual respondent has established an actual injury,20 or whether the respondent organizations have established actual injury to any of their indigent members.

B

The obvious interest of all respondents, to which they claim actual injury, is that of access to hospital services. In one sense, of course, they have suffered injury to that interest. The complaint alleges specific occasions on which each of the individual respondents sought but was denied hospital services solely due to his indigency,"1 and

a

20 The individual respondents sought to maintain this suit as a class action on behalf of all persons similarly situated. That a suit may be a class action, however, adds nothing to the question of standing, for even named plaintiffs who represent class "must allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the class to which they belong and which they purport to represent." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S., at 502.

21 One of the individual respondents complains, not that he was

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Opinion of the Court

in at least some of the cases it is clear that the needed treatment was unavailable, as a practical matter, anywhere else. The complaint also alleges that members of the respondent organizations need hospital services but live in communities in which the private hospitals do not serve indigents. We thus assume, for purpose of analysis, that some members have been denied service. But injury at the hands of a hospital is insufficient by itself to establish a case or controversy in the context of this suit, for no hospital is a defendant. The only defendants are officials of the Department of the Treasury, and the only claims of illegal action respondents desire the courts to adjudicate are charged to those officials. "Although the law of standing has been greatly changed in [recent] years, we have steadfastly adhered to the requirement that, at least in the absence of a statute expressly conferring standing, federal plaintiffs must allege some threatened or actual injury resulting from the putatively illegal action before a federal court may assume jurisdiction." Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S., at 617.22 In other words, the "case or controversy" limitation of Art. III still requires that a federal court act only to redress injury that fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant, and not injury

denied service, but that he was treated and then billed despite the hospital's knowledge of his indigency. This variation of the injury does not change the standing analysis.

22 The reference in Linda R. S. to "a statute expressly conferring standing" was in recognition of Congress' power to create new interests the invasion of which will confer standing. See 410 U. S., at 617 n. 3; Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205 (1972). When Congress has so acted, the requirements of Art. III remain: "[T]he plaintiff still must allege a distinct and palpable injury to himself, even if it is an injury shared by a large class of other possible litigants." Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 501. See also United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669 (1973); cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, supra, at 732 n. 3.

that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court.

The complaint here alleged only that petitioners, by the adoption of Revenue Ruling 69-545, had "encouraged" hospitals to deny services to indigents.23 The implicit corollary of this allegation is that a grant of respondents' requested relief, resulting in a requirement that all hospitals serve indigents as a condition to favorable tax treatment, would "discourage" hospitals from denying their services to respondents. But it does not follow from the allegation and its corollary that the denial of access to hospital services in fact results from petitioners' new Ruling, or that a court-ordered return by petitioners to their previous policy would result in these respondents' receiving the hospital services they desire. It is purely speculative whether the denials of service

28 The Court of Appeals, in sustaining Revenue Ruling 69-545 on the merits, relied in part upon its conclusion that the new IRS policy, which apparently requires a hospital to provide free emergency care to indigents, may result in as much or more relief to the poor than the policy of the previous Ruling. Much of respondents' argument, and that of several of the amici, have been directed against that conclusion. As we do not reach the merits, we need not consider this question. But we accept for purposes of the standing inquiry respondents' averment that the IRS's new policy encourages a hospital to provide fewer services to indigents than it might have under the previous policy.

We do note, however, that it is entirely speculative whether even the earlier Ruling would have assured the medical care they desire. It required a hospital to provide care for the indigent only "to the extent of its financial ability," and stated that a low charity record was not conclusive that a hospital had failed to meet that duty. See supra, at 30. Thus, a hospital could not maintain, consistently with Revenue Ruling 56-185, a general policy of refusing care to all patients unable to pay. But the number of such patients accepted, and whether any particular applicant would be admitted, would depend upon the financial ability of the hospital to which admittance was sought.