The Supreme Court decided in "Frothingham v. Mellon" (1923), that a taxpayer did not have standing to sue the federal government to prevent expenditures if his only injury is an anticipated increase in taxes. "Frothingham v. Mellon" did not recognize a constitutional barrier against federal taxpayer lawsuits. Rather, it denied standing because the petitioner did not allege "a breach by Congress of the specific constitutional limitations imposed upon an exercise of the taxing and spending power." Because the purpose of standing is to avoid burdening the court with situations in which there is no real controversy, standing is used to ensure that the parties in the suit are properly adversarial, "not whether the issue itself is justiciable."