Anna Carrigan v. New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services & a.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for rehearing under Rule 22 as well
as formal revision before publication in the New Hampshire Reports. Readers are
requested to notify the Reporter, Supreme Court of New Hampshire, One Charles
Doe Drive, Concord, New Hampshire 03301, of any editorial errors in order that
corrections may be made before the opinion goes to press. Errors may be
reported by e-mail at the following address: reporter@courts.state.nh.us.
Opinions are available on the Internet by 9:00 a.m. on the morning of their
release. The direct address of the court’s home page is:
http://www.courts.state.nh.us/supreme.

THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

___________________________

Merrimack
No. 2020-0518

ANNA CARRIGAN

v.

NEW HAMPSHIRE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES & a.

Argued: May 5, 2021
Opinion Issued: July 20, 2021

Rath, Young and Pignatelli, P.C., of Concord (Michael S. Lewis on the
brief and orally), for the plaintiff.

Office of the Attorney General, (Samuel R.V. Garland and Jennifer S.
Ramsey, assistant attorneys general, on the brief, and Mr. Garland orally), for
the defendants.

DONOVAN, J. The plaintiff, Anna Carrigan, filed suit against the
defendants, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
and the Department’s commissioner, alleging that they are failing to meet their
statutory and constitutional duties as a result of their “irresponsible” spending
decisions.1 She asserted standing under Part I, Article 8 of the New Hampshire
1 Alleging violations of various statutory and constitutional provisions, the plaintiff also sued other

individual defendants, in their official capacities as employees of the Department, who, she
asserted, retaliated against her for publicly complaining about the Department’s alleged
Constitution, which provides New Hampshire taxpayers who are eligible to vote
with standing to seek a declaration that the State or a local government “has
spent, or has approved spending, public funds” in violation of the law. N.H.
CONST. pt. I, art. 8. The Superior Court (Schulman, J.) granted the
defendants’ motion to dismiss for want of standing, and the plaintiff appeals.
We affirm because the plaintiff fails to challenge any specific spending action or
spending approval, by the Department, as necessary to maintain standing
under Part I, Article 8.

I. Facts

The following facts are drawn from the plaintiff’s complaint. The plaintiff
is a taxpaying resident of Farmington, an eligible New Hampshire voter, and
Department employee. In February 2020, she filed a complaint against the
defendants alleging, in essence, “that the State has failed to abide by its
mandatory, substantive, and procedural obligations to respond to and protect
children who are subject to . . . child abuse and neglect.” She seeks a ruling
that the Department’s “response to the child abuse and neglect crisis is illegal
and unconstitutional.” According to the plaintiff, the Department has a
backlog of thousands of abuse and neglect cases, the State’s child welfare
agency is understaffed, and its existing staff is undertrained.

Her complaint ties these, and other, alleged shortcomings to the
Department’s “poor allocation of resources, . . . which relate to a series of
spending decisions [the Department] has made and continues to make” and its
“unconstitutional budgetary decision-making in the face of uncontroverted
evidence regarding the connection between the absence of resources and the
inability of New Hampshire to abide by its mandated legal obligations.” She
further alleged that the Department has not: “invested sufficient resources to
address its documented shortfalls in regard to child protective services”;
“funded the agencies with responsibility for abiding by the legal requirements
enacted by the legislature at levels that facilitate legal functioning”; or “spent
substantial sums of state allocated funds available to address the needs of
abused and neglected children, though such funds are available.” In light of
these allegations, the plaintiff sought a declaration to the effect that the
defendants, as a “product” or “result” of their spending policies, are failing to
comply with various child welfare statutory provisions and are violating the
constitutional rights of abused and neglected children.

The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of standing,
asserting that, to have standing under Part I, Article 8, the plaintiff must
challenge “the lawfulness of a particular, identifiable expenditure or the
approval of a particular, identifiable expenditure.” (Emphases omitted.)

shortcomings. These claims were dismissed with prejudice by agreement of the parties and are
not before us.

2
Because the plaintiff merely challenged the defendants’ failure to spend public
money in the manner she believes is required, the defendants argued that she
lacked standing under Part I, Article 8.

The trial court agreed with the defendants, concluding that “[n]othing in
the text of Article 8 suggests that it grants every taxpayer the right to seek a
judicial determination of whether the government has sufficiently funded the
programs that it runs.” Accordingly, the trial court dismissed the plaintiff’s
complaint. This appeal followed.

II. Standard of Review

When a motion to dismiss does not contest the sufficiency of the
plaintiff’s claim, but instead challenges the plaintiff’s standing to sue, the trial
court must look beyond the allegations and determine, based upon the facts
alleged, whether the plaintiff has demonstrated a right to claim relief. See
Avery v. N.H. Dep’t of Educ., 162 N.H. 604, 606-07 (2011). When the relevant
facts are not in dispute — here, that the plaintiff is a New Hampshire taxpayer
and eligible voter — we review the trial court’s standing determination de novo.
See id. at 607.

III. Discussion

The doctrine of standing “limits the judicial role, consistent with a
system of separated powers, to addressing those matters that are traditionally
thought to be capable of resolution through the judicial process.” Duncan v.
State, 166 N.H. 630, 643 (2014) (quotation omitted); see Susan B. Anthony List
v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 157 (2014). In New Hampshire, standing in the
traditional sense is grounded in Part II, Article 74 of the State Constitution,
which provides: “Each branch of the legislature as well as the governor and
council shall have authority to require the opinions of the justices of the
supreme court upon important questions of law and upon solemn occasions.”
N.H. CONST. pt. II, art. 74; see Duncan, 166 N.H. at 642-43. Thus, while the
respective branches of the legislature, the governor, and the executive council
may request our advisory opinion on important questions of law, other parties
may not. See Duncan, 166 N.H. at 640; Piper v. Meredith, 109 N.H. 328, 330
(1969). Rather, we have held that those other parties must present claims for
judicial resolution through an adversarial process in which their actual
interests are at stake. See Teeboom v. City of Nashua, 172 N.H. 301, 307
(2019); Duncan, 166 N.H. at 642-43.

In a typical case, determining whether a party has standing to sue
requires that we focus on whether the party has alleged a legal injury against
which the law was designed to protect. See Teeboom, 172 N.H. at 307. A party
must allege a concrete, personal injury, implicating legal or equitable rights,
with regard to an actual, not hypothetical, dispute, which is capable of judicial

3
redress by a favorable decision. See id. at 307, 309; Duncan, 166 N.H. at 642-
43. Requiring that a party claim a personal injury to a legal or equitable right
“capable of being redressed by the court tends to assure that the legal
questions presented to the court will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere
of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic
appreciation of the consequences of judicial action.” Duncan, 166 N.H. at 643,
647-48 (quotation omitted).

This is not, however, a typical case for standing purposes; it involves a
unique type of standing, the history of which we briefly recount. Prior to our
decision in Baer v. New Hampshire Department of Education, we had decided
two conflicting lines of cases determining whether certain plaintiffs, who did
not allege a personal injury in the traditional sense, had standing based upon
their status as taxpayers, a doctrine known as taxpayer standing. See Baer v.
N.H. Dep’t of Educ., 160 N.H. 727, 730 (2010), superseded by statute as stated
in Duncan, 166 N.H. at 638. Under the earlier line of cases, taxpayers could
bring a declaratory judgment action — which allows parties to establish their
rights or question the validity of a law — to seek “redress for the unlawful acts
of their public officials.” Id. In those cases, taxpayers had standing because
we “reasoned that every taxpayer has a vital interest in and a right to the
preservation of an orderly and lawful government regardless of whether his
purse is immediately touched.” Id. (quotation omitted).

In tension with the first line of cases, the second, more recent line of
cases, “required taxpayers to demonstrate that their rights are impaired or
prejudiced in order to maintain a declaratory judgment action.” Id. In Baer,
we concluded that “our more recent analysis of taxpayer standing [was] more
consistent with the language of RSA 491:22,” our declaratory judgment statute.
Id.; see RSA 491:22 (Supp. 2020). Under this standard, a party was required
to allege the impairment or prejudice of a present legal or equitable right which
was personal to the party; a party’s mere status as a taxpayer was insufficient
to confer standing. See Baer, 160 N.H. at 730-31. Our prior cases concluding
otherwise were, therefore, overruled. Id. at 731.

The legislature responded to Baer by amending RSA 491:22 to provide
taxpayer standing to petitioners seeking declaratory judgment “when it is
alleged that the taxing district . . . has engaged, or proposes to engage, in
conduct that is unlawful or unauthorized, and in such a case the taxpayer
shall not have to demonstrate that his or her personal rights were impaired or
prejudiced.” Duncan, 166 N.H. at 637-38 (quotation and emphasis omitted).
In Duncan, we analyzed the constitutionality of RSA 491:22 as amended. Id. at
643-45. We explained that “[t]he standing required by our constitution is not
satisfied by the abstract interest in ensuring that the State Constitution is
observed.” Id. at 643. By allowing parties to bring declaratory judgment
actions without having to claim a concrete, personal injury, the amended
statute permitted courts “to render to private individuals advisory opinions,

4
outside the context of concrete, fully-developed factual situations.” Id. at 644
(quotation omitted). “In doing so,” we concluded, RSA 491:22, I, as amended
was unconstitutional because it “violates Part II, Article 74.” Id.

In 2018, New Hampshire voters adopted an amendment to Part I, Article
8 of the New Hampshire Constitution. See 5 Gordon J. MacDonald, New
Hampshire Practice: Wiebusch on New Hampshire Civil Practice and Procedure
§ 36.06, at 11 (4th ed. 2020 Supp.); see also N.H. CONST. pt. 2, art. 100
(establishing the methods by which the constitution may be amended).
According to testimony before the Senate Rules and Enrolled Bills Committee
from Representative Berch, who co-sponsored the House Bill which ultimately
led to the amendment being put to the voters, the amendment was intended to
return taxpayer standing in New Hampshire to its status prior to our decisions
in Baer and Duncan. See Senate Rules and Enrolled Bills Committee Hearing
on CACR 15, at 1-2 (Mar. 29, 2018) (Remarks of Rep. Berch).2 As amended,
Part I, Article 8 provides:

All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the
people, all the magistrates and officers of government are their
substitutes and agents, and at all times accountable to them.
Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable
and responsive. To that end, the public’s right of access to
governmental proceedings and records shall not be
unreasonably restricted. The public also has a right to an
orderly, lawful, and accountable government. Therefore, any
individual taxpayer eligible to vote in the State shall have
standing to petition the Superior Court to declare whether the
State or political subdivision in which the taxpayer resides has
spent, or has approved spending, public funds in violation of a
law, ordinance, or constitutional provision. In such a case, the
taxpayer shall not have to demonstrate that his or her personal
rights were impaired or prejudiced beyond his or her status as a
taxpayer. However, this right shall not apply when the
challenged governmental action is the subject of a judicial or
administrative decision from which there is a right of appeal by
statute or otherwise by the parties to that proceeding.

N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 8.

Determining whether the plaintiff has standing requires us to interpret
Part I, Article 8. We review the trial court’s interpretation of the constitution de

2 Available at

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/HearingReport.aspx?id=15052&sy=2018.

5
novo. Bd. of Trustees, N.H. Judicial Ret. Plan v. Sec’y of State, 161 N.H. 49, 53
(2010). When interpreting a provision of the constitution, we look to its
purpose and intent. Duncan, 166 N.H. at 640. “The language used by the
people in the great paramount law which controls the legislature as well as the
people, is to be always understood and explained in that sense in which it was
used at the time when the constitution and the laws were adopted.” Petition of
Below, 151 N.H. 135, 139 (2004) (quotation and ellipsis omitted). Accordingly,
we give the words in question the meaning they must be presumed to have had
to the electorate when the vote to adopt them was cast. Bd. of Trustees, 161
N.H. at 53. The simplest and most obvious interpretation of the constitution, if
sensible, is most likely that meant by the people in its adoption. Duncan, 166
N.H. at 640. Furthermore, the constitution as it now stands is to be
considered as a whole, as if each provision were enacted at one time. Bd. of
Trustees, 161 N.H. at 53-54; see Thompson v. Kidder, 74 N.H. 89, 91 (1906)
(“The whole is to be considered, and the true meaning to be drawn from the
consideration of every part.”).

Part I, Article 8 identifies the type of party who may invoke it to present
his or her complaint to a court: “any individual taxpayer eligible to vote in the
State,” who need not “demonstrate that his or her personal rights were
impaired or prejudiced beyond his or her status as a taxpayer.” N.H.
CONST. pt. I, art. 8. The article also provides that a party may request a
court to adjudicate “whether the State or political subdivision in which the
taxpayer resides has spent, or has approved spending, public funds in
violation of a law, ordinance, or constitutional provision,” unless “the
challenged governmental action is the subject of a judicial or administrative
decision from which there is a right of appeal.” Id. In this case, the question
of the plaintiff’s standing turns on the scope of the issues that Part I, Article 8
permits courts to adjudicate: whether the plaintiff alleged that the State “has
spent, or has approved spending, public funds in violation of” the law. Id.

The simplest, most obvious reading of the phrase “has spent, or has
approved spending” is that it refers to a specific governmental spending action
or approval of spending. Id.; see Duncan, 166 N.H. at 640. That is, a plaintiff
with standing under Part I, Article 8 can call on the courts to determine
whether a specific act or approval of spending conforms with the law. This
interpretation of the phrase “has spent, or has approved spending” is confirmed
by the final sentence of the provision, which provides that the right to standing
created by Part I, Article 8 “shall not apply when the challenged
governmental action is the subject of a judicial or administrative decision
from which there is a right of appeal.” N.H. CONST. pt. I, art. 8 (emphasis
added). When Part I, Article 8 is read as a whole, the phrase “has spent, or
has approved spending” must be understood as referencing a specific category
of “governmental action.”

6
 We cannot conclude that the people, in adopting the amendment to Part
I, Article 8, would have understood “governmental action” to mean a
governmental body’s comprehensive response to a complex issue, such as child
welfare, which encompasses many decisions to spend or approve spending, as
well as decisions not to spend or approve spending. Accordingly, the people
would not have understood the phrase “has spent, or has approved spending”
to mean a governmental body’s overall management of its operations and
functions, including its allocation of appropriations, as opposed to one or more
discrete acts or decisions approving certain spending. Part I, Article 8,
therefore, does not provide the judiciary with the authority to, as the plaintiff
requests, decide whether the State or a local government has “invested
sufficient resources to address” alleged shortcomings or has properly “funded
the agencies with responsibility for abiding by the legal requirements enacted
by the legislature at levels that facilitate legal functioning.”

The plaintiff argues that “a lawsuit alleg[ing] that the State ‘has not spent
enough[]’ . . . remains a lawsuit about spending.” Part I, Article 8, however,
does not state that a plaintiff has standing to bring a declaratory judgment
action “about spending.” The provision’s language applies to a specific
“governmental action,” and does not empower courts to audit a governmental
body to determine whether its policy decisions regarding the allocation of
resources are prudent or sufficient to comply with legal requirements. N.H.
CONST. pt. I, art. 8. As the New York Court of Appeals observed when it
interpreted New York’s taxpayer standing statute, which allows taxpayers to
challenge “a wrongful expenditure, misappropriation, misapplication, or any
other illegal or unconstitutional disbursement of state funds,” N.Y. State Fin.
Law § 123-b (McKinney 2021), “a claim that state funds are not being spent
wisely is patently insufficient to” confer standing. Saratoga County
Chamber/Commerce v. Pataki, 798 N.E.2d 1047, 1053 (N.Y. 2003).

The plaintiff also argues that in New Hampshire Health Care Association
v. Governor, 161 N.H. 378 (2011), we “defined the constitutional power to
spend, broadly, to include government spending at lesser, rather than greater,
amounts.” New Hampshire Health Care, however, involved a challenge to a
specific governmental action and addressed the executive branch’s discretion,
under Part II, Article 56 of the New Hampshire Constitution, to spend less
money than appropriated by the legislature to accomplish legislative objectives.
Id. at 382, 389-90. There, we did not decide the scope of a challenge a plaintiff
may bring when she alleges that a governmental body “has spent, or has
approved spending” in violation of the law under Part I, Article 8.

Our conclusion that Part I, Article 8 confers standing upon a plaintiff
who challenges a particular governmental spending action is consistent with
our pre-Baer decisions in which we determined that taxpayers had standing, in
the absence of an allegation that their personal rights were impaired or
prejudiced, to challenge various governmental actions. That line of cases

7
involved challenges to the legality of specific governmental actions. For
example, in Blood v. Electric Company, 68 N.H. 340, 340-41 (1895), taxpayers
brought suit in equity to challenge a city council’s decision to enter into a
streetlight operating contract for a term of ten years. Similarly, in Sherburne v.
Portsmouth, 72 N.H. 539, 540, 543-44 (1904), taxpayers challenged a city’s
decision to build a baseball park on a common area with city funds. Clapp v.
Jaffrey, 97 N.H. 456, 458-61 (1952), addressed claims by taxpayers who
brought an action to determine whether a town could lawfully rent equipment
to, or perform services for, private individuals on their private properties. And
in Green v. Shaw, 114 N.H. 289, 290-91 (1974), taxpayers alleged that city
officials had illegally expended money for various specific expenses, such as
purchasing a truck and police cruiser, and had illegally drawn from the city’s
revenue surplus account without city council approval.

In each of these cases, and others in which we similarly allowed plaintiffs
to bring claims based, in part, upon their status as taxpayers, the plaintiffs
alleged that specific governmental actions were illegal. See Austin v. State Tax
Comm’n, 114 N.H. 137, 138-39 (1974) (Maine residents paying taxes on income
earned in New Hampshire had standing to challenge the constitutionality of
New Hampshire’s Commuters Income Tax), rev’d on other grounds sub nom.
Austin v. New Hampshire, 420 U.S. 656 (1975); N. H. &c. Beverage Ass’n v.
Commission, 100 N.H. 5, 6-7 (1955) (association of taxpayers holding liquor
permits had standing to challenge the Liquor Commission’s policy regarding
the issuance of liquor licenses to corporations owned by other individuals
holding liquor permits). In none of these cases did the parties, as the plaintiff
does here, allege that a governmental body’s policy decisions regarding its
allocation of appropriations were imprudent or insufficient, thereby resulting in
illegal or unconstitutional conduct.

In addition to being consistent with the pre-Baer cases discussed above,
our conclusion that a plaintiff relying upon Part I, Article 8 to establish
standing must challenge a specific governmental action is also consonant with
the decisions of other state courts examining their state’s taxpayer standing
doctrine. The Missouri Supreme Court, for example, has held that to have
taxpayer standing the plaintiff, among other things, “must be able to
demonstrate a direct expenditure of funds.” E. Mo. Laborers D. Coun. v. St.
Louis Cty., 781 S.W.2d 43, 47 (Mo. 1989) (emphasis added); see LeBeau v.
Commissioners of Franklin County, 422 S.W.3d 284, 286-87, 290 (Mo. 2014)
(Missouri taxpayers had standing to challenge the constitutionality of a specific
legislative act). In Colorado, taxpayers have been held to have standing when
they challenged specific governmental expenditures, such as a transfer of
money between particular government funds and the public financing of
nontherapeutic abortions. See Reeves-Toney v. School Dist No. 1 Denver, 442
P.3d 81, 86 (Colo. 2019) (collecting cases). And, in North Carolina, taxpayers
have standing to challenge discrete governmental actions, such as an alleged
illegal appointment and payment of justices of the peace and the unlawful

8
expenditure of public funds to build a museum. See Goldston v. State, 637
S.E.2d 876, 879-81 (N.C. 2006) (collecting cases).3 The unifying theme, as it
relates to standing, running through these cases is that taxpayers have
standing to challenge specific governmental actions, not to launch broad
polemics on governmental bodies’ general spending policies.

Furthermore, our reading of Part I, Article 8 is informed by the principle
that we interpret the constitution as a whole, as it now stands, and as if
enacted at one time. See Thompson, 74 N.H. at 91. A corollary of this
principle is that we must construe constitutional provisions so as to avoid
conflict with one another. See id.; see also Opinion of the Justices (Voting Age
in Primary Elections II), 158 N.H. 661, 671 (2009). Concluding that a plaintiff
has standing to challenge the overall spending policies of one of our coequal
branches of government would conflict with at least three other constitutional
provisions: Part I, Article 37, Part II, Article 72-a, and Part II, Article 74.

Part II, Article 72-a vests the courts with “judicial power.” Part II, Article
74, “in practical effect, limits the judicial role, consistent with a system of
separated powers, to addressing those matters that are traditionally thought to
be capable of resolution through the judicial process.” Duncan, 166 N.H. at
640, 643 (quotation omitted). The task that the plaintiff asks the courts to
undertake — determining whether the Department’s “response to the child
abuse and neglect crisis is illegal and unconstitutional” — would take the
courts beyond the judicial power by having them assess the manner by which
the Department is allocating its legislative appropriations, rather than having
them issue an authoritative adjudication of whether any specific act or
approval of spending is illegal. Cf. id. at 642-43.

“[I]t is one thing to have standing to correct clear illegality of official
action and quite another to have standing in order to interpose litigating
plaintiffs and the courts into the management and operation of public
enterprises.” Pataki, 798 N.E.2d at 1053 (quotation omitted). Courts are ill-
equipped to wade into policy debates as to whether governmental bodies are
sufficiently funded or whether appropriated funds are being wisely spent to
meet an agency’s objectives. See State v. Express Co., 60 N.H. 219, 234 (1880)
(Stanley, J.) (“[W]e recognize the doctrine, so often expressed, that we have
nothing to do with the propriety, expediency, or policy of any law . . . .”); see
also Parents Against Realignment v. GHSA, 516 S.E.2d 528, 529 (Ga. 1999)

3 This survey of cases requiring taxpayer plaintiffs to challenge a specific governmental action is

not exhaustive. See, e.g., Horner v. Curry, 125 N.E.3d 584, 587, 596 (Ind. 2019) (Indiana
taxpayers had standing to challenge the constitutionality of a specific civil forfeiture scheme);
Pataki, 798 N.E.2d at 1050, 1053-54 (New York taxpayers had standing to challenge particular
gambling laws and the expenditure of state funds in furtherance of those laws); North Broward
Hosp. Dist. v. Fornes, 476 So. 2d 154, 155-56 (Fla. 1985) (recognizing that Florida’s taxpayer
standing doctrine allows taxpayers to challenge the constitutionality of specific government
appropriations).

9
(explaining that courts are improper forums in which to resolve “discretionary
policy determinations” (quotation omitted)). Thus, although taxpayer standing
is specifically conferred by our constitution, we do not read Part I, Article 8 to
confer standing on a plaintiff who challenges governmental spending policies.

We are also aware of the conflict that ruling in favor of the plaintiff’s
standing would present with Part I, Article 37, which espouses the
constitutional principle of separation of powers. See Baines v. N.H. Senate
President, 152 N.H. 124, 128 (2005). “The justiciability doctrine prevents
judicial violation of the separation of powers by limiting judicial review of
certain matters that lie within the province of the other two branches of
government.” Burt v. Speaker, N.H. House of Representatives, 173 N.H. 522,
525 (2020) (quotation omitted). A controversy is nonjusticiable when, among
other possibilities, it presents “a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable
standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial
policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the
impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without
expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government.” Baker
v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962); see Burt, 173 N.H. at 525. Calling upon the
judiciary to adjudicate, as the plaintiff requests, a challenge to the prudence of
the State’s overall approach to child welfare implicates each concern discussed
above.

Analyzing the legality of a discrete governmental action and determining
the remedy, if the action is illegal, is quotidian, though often difficult, business
for the judiciary. Scrutinizing the entire realm of a governmental body’s
spending activity, on the other hand, to determine what aspects of its spending
decisions, if any, are causing injury exceeds the bounds of our role and
infringes on executive or legislative prerogatives. See Express Co., 60 N.H. at
234 (“[O]ur sole duty, when the validity of any statute is challenged, is to
ascertain and declare whether it conflicts with the constitution as the
paramount law, leaving all other considerations with the legislature and people,
where they of right belong.”); see also Peavler v. Monroe Cty. Bd. of Com’rs, 528
N.E.2d 40, 44 (Ind. 1988) (“The separation of powers doctrine forecloses the
courts from reviewing political, social and economic actions within the province
of coordinate branches of government.”).

In short, the authority to determine how public funds are generally
appropriated and spent rests, respectively, with the legislative and executive
branches. See New Hampshire Health Care, 161 N.H. at 386-87 (discussing
the legislative branch’s authority to appropriate funds and the executive
branch’s authority to expend funds). Although we may determine whether any
particular act or approval of spending is lawful, we cannot provide advice to
our coequal branches of government regarding the prudence of their spending
decisions. Cf. id. at 385-400 (determining whether a specific legislative
enactment and executive order were constitutional).

10
 We acknowledge that the plaintiff’s complaint references several specific
instances of spending related to the Department. However, we do not read her
complaint as challenging the legality of any specific acts of Departmental
spending. She does not seek a declaration that any of the specific expenditures
identified in her complaint was illegal; rather she requests a declaration that,
as a “product” or “result” of the Department’s spending policies, the defendants
are failing to meet legal obligations. Because she does not challenge the
legality of any discrete act or approval of spending by the defendants, she does
not have standing under Part I, Article 8.

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the trial court’s grant of the
defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Affirmed.

HICKS, BASSETT, and HANTZ MARCONI, JJ., concurred.

11