Pleading Article III Standing Requires Factual Allegations in the Operative Complaint; Failure Requires Jurisdictional Dismissal Without Prejudice

Introduction

In John Pendarvis v. Alan Wilson (4th Cir. Feb. 10, 2026) (unpublished), hemp farmer John Trenton Pendarvis sued more than thirty South Carolina officials across multiple agencies, alleging a broad conspiracy to violate his constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983—principally through an allegedly unlawful arrest and the destruction of his hemp crop.

The case arrived at the Fourth Circuit after extensive motion practice and multiple amendments prompted by repeated concerns that the pleadings did not comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 and the plausibility requirements of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. The key appellate issue ultimately became jurisdictional: whether the operative (second amended) complaint alleged facts sufficient to establish Article III standing at the pleading stage.

Summary of the Opinion

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s dismissal and remanded with instructions to dismiss the action without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction. The court held that Pendarvis’s operative (second amended) complaint did not plead facts supporting the elements of Article III standing—injury in fact, traceability, and redressability—as required by Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife. Instead, the complaint consisted of conclusory assertions.

Critically, the panel rejected any attempt to rely on factual allegations contained in superseded pleadings, citing Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger for the principle that once amended, prior complaints are “dead” and “no longer perform[] any function in the case.”

Judge Wilkinson concurred, emphasizing that the district court acted within its discretion regarding pleading deficiencies and highlighting the particular weakness of claims targeting the South Carolina Attorney General based merely on issuance of an advisory opinion.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

  • Design Gaps, Inc. v. Shelter, LLC: The court invoked this decision for the appellate court’s independent obligation to confirm jurisdiction. It frames standing as a threshold inquiry that cannot be waived by the parties or ignored by the court.
  • Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife: The backbone of the panel’s standing analysis. Lujan supplies the familiar tripartite test—injury in fact, traceability, and redressability—and the requirement that these elements be supported at the pleading stage by factual allegations, not abstractions.
  • Benham v. City of Charlotte: Used for two related propositions: (1) the Fourth Circuit must raise standing sua sponte when apparent; and (2) when the district court lacked jurisdiction, vacatur and remand with instructions to dismiss is the proper appellate disposition.
  • David v. Alphin (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal): The court analogized the standing inquiry to Rule 12(b)(6) plausibility review: courts disregard “legal conclusions” and “naked assertions” labeled as facts. This case provided the doctrinal bridge for filtering conclusory allegations in the standing context.
  • Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal: While the district court addressed pleading sufficiency under Rules 8 and 12, the Fourth Circuit’s opinion re-centered the dispute on standing, still using Twombly/Iqbal to explain why conclusory allegations cannot carry the day—even for jurisdictional allegations like standing.
  • Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger: A crucial procedural standing point: the operative complaint alone controls. Prior pleadings cannot be mined to supply missing jurisdictional facts. This directly foreclosed Pendarvis’s apparent belief that earlier factual allegations could save the second amended complaint.
  • Adams Outdoor Advert. Ltd. P’ship v. Beaufort Cnty. (quoting S. Walk at Broadlands Homeowner’s Ass’n, Inc. v. OpenBand at Broadlands, LLC): These cases grounded the remedial rule: dismissal for lack of standing (a subject-matter jurisdiction defect) must be without prejudice because the court lacks power to adjudicate the merits.
  • Britt v. DeJoy: Addressed appellate jurisdiction. Even though the district court’s dismissal was “without prejudice,” it was final and appealable because the court did not grant leave to amend.

Legal Reasoning

  1. Standing is a mandatory, threshold jurisdictional requirement. The panel began from first principles: federal courts must ensure Article III standing exists, even if no party raises it (Design Gaps, Inc. v. Shelter, LLC; Benham v. City of Charlotte).
  2. At the pleading stage, standing must be supported by factual allegations, not conclusions. Applying Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, the panel required pleaded facts supporting (i) injury in fact, (ii) traceability, and (iii) redressability. It then applied the Iqbal-style filter (via David v. Alphin) to disregard purely conclusory statements.
  3. The operative complaint was devoid of jurisdictionally meaningful facts. The second amended complaint, as characterized by the panel, retained “only conclusory allegations” as to standing’s elements. That defect deprived the district court of subject-matter jurisdiction.
  4. Earlier pleadings cannot supply missing standing facts. The court rejected reliance on the original or first amended complaint, citing Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger for the rule that superseded pleadings are “dead.”
  5. The remedy is jurisdictional dismissal without prejudice. Because the district court lacked jurisdiction to reach the merits, the Fourth Circuit vacated and required dismissal without prejudice (Adams Outdoor Advert. Ltd. P’ship v. Beaufort Cnty.; S. Walk at Broadlands Homeowner’s Ass’n, Inc. v. OpenBand at Broadlands, LLC; Benham v. City of Charlotte).

Impact

Although unpublished and therefore “not binding precedent,” the decision signals several practical lessons likely to influence litigation behavior in the Fourth Circuit:

  • Standing is not merely a boilerplate recital. Complaints—especially sprawling multi-defendant § 1983 complaints—must include concrete, nonconclusory facts connecting specific defendants to a plaintiff’s injury and explaining how the requested relief would redress it.
  • Amendments can be jurisdictionally perilous. By “stripping out” factual allegations in later amendments, a plaintiff can inadvertently eliminate the very facts needed to establish standing, even if those facts existed earlier.
  • Appellate courts will correct merits dismissals where jurisdiction is absent. The opinion reinforces a clean remedial rule: when standing is not adequately pleaded, the proper disposition is dismissal without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction, not a merits-based dismissal.
  • High-level officials are not automatically proper defendants. Judge Wilkinson’s concurrence underscores heightened skepticism where claims against senior officials (e.g., an Attorney General) rest on routine functions like issuing advisory opinions without concrete allegations of causation and redressability.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Article III standing
A constitutional requirement limiting federal courts to real “cases” and “controversies.” A plaintiff must plead: (1) a concrete personal injury, (2) a plausible connection between the injury and the defendant’s conduct, and (3) a likelihood that the court can fix the injury with the requested relief.
Conclusive vs. factual allegations
Saying “defendants violated my rights and injured me” is a conclusion. Pleading facts means describing what happened—who did what, when, how it harmed the plaintiff, and how a court order would remedy it.
Operative complaint / superseded pleadings are “dead”
Once a complaint is amended, the new complaint replaces the old one. Courts generally evaluate the case based on the newest complaint alone; earlier versions cannot be treated as still “on file” for missing facts (Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger).
Dismissal “without prejudice” for lack of jurisdiction
A court without subject-matter jurisdiction cannot decide the merits. So it must dismiss without prejudice—leaving open the possibility of refiling if jurisdiction can be properly established.
Vacate and remand
The appellate court nullifies the district court’s order (“vacate”) and sends the case back (“remand”) with instructions—here, to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction rather than for pleading defects on the merits.

Conclusion

John Pendarvis v. Alan Wilson reinforces a strict but foundational rule: Article III standing must be supported by nonconclusory factual allegations in the operative complaint. Where a plaintiff files an amended complaint that strips away factual content and leaves only legal conclusions, the federal courts lack jurisdiction to proceed. The Fourth Circuit’s remedy—vacatur and remand for dismissal without prejudice—underscores that standing defects are not mere technicalities; they are constitutional limits on judicial power.