Opinion ID: 318460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: considerations of 'vagueness'

Text: 40 Appellants claim lack of notice that their activity of July 16, 1971 would be a violation of the 'common decency' regulation. They stress that they and others had previously demonstrated at the back of the cafeteria, and up and down the main aisles, sometimes with the slogan 'PIGS OFF CENSUS,' without any warning by the relevant authorities that this was illegal activity. They claim that this fact, together with the generally 'vague' wording of the regulation, means the sudden suppression of their July 16 activity denied due process. 41 In view of the impracticability of defining more precisely what type of activity would be injurious to 'efficiency of the service' the regulation is not per se at odds with the Fifth Amendment. Where criminal prosecution is not at issue, a broad regulation can be given content by the authorities through its proper application. 9 The necessity of 'catchall' regulations as a matter of administrative convenience does not obviate, however, the need to give content to such prohibitions by warnings, which give the general regulations a requisite concreteness, alerting the employee to the activity prohibited. In this regard it is helpful to look once again at the facts of Meehan and Goldwasser. 42 In Meehan, the discharged policeman had been warned by his supervisor, the Personnel Director, 'to avoid local issuance of comments or statements which could be used by the Panamanian press to inflame further the difficulties between the United States and Panama'. 129 U.S.App.D.C. at 221, 392 F.2d at 826. 10 In Goldwasser, 135 U.S.App.D.C. at 224, 417 F.2d at 1171, appellant had been 'repeatedly warned' by the Chief of the Language School that his conduct was prejudicial to the interests of the United States. In the instant case, there had been no warning of any kind, nor is there evidence in the record that appellants expected they would be sanctioned for the specific departure from the normal routine of lunchroom protest. 43 In Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964), the Supreme Court found it 'irrelevant that petitioners at one point testified that they had intended to be arrested,' since the determination whether a statute affords 'fair warning . . . must be made on the basis of the statute itself and the other pertinent law, rather than on . . . an ad hoc appraisal of the subjective expectations of particular defendants.' 378 U.S. at 355-356 n. 5, 84 S.Ct. at 1703. 44 Our reasoning fully takes into account our recent decision in Avrech v. Secretary of the Navy, 155 U.S.App.D.C. 352, 477 F.2d 1237 (D.C. Cir. March 20, 1973). In that case the Court held void for vagueness Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which imposes criminal sanctions of up to 20 years imprisonment for 'all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of the good order and discipline in the armed forces' and 'all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.' The general language was held insufficient as the basis for defining criminal conduct. 45 The action in our present context, a few days' suspension, though of some consequence to the employee, does not brand him as a criminal. Words considered too vague to define a crime may lay the foundation for lesser sanctions. However, the applicability of disciplinary sanctions to a violation of a regulation that would be an impermissible basis for prosecution presupposes that the particular conduct is clearly within the ambit of the regulation, even though there are other respects in which the regulation in ambiguous or vague. That is another issue to be threashed out on remand, since appellants contend that the conduct resulting in their suspension was virtually identical to conduct previously tolerated. The appeals examiner put it that their activity in this case was 'unprecedented,' which is only to say that he found the differences from what had been permitted in the past to be greater than the similarities. But the problem was not analyzed in terms of such similarities and differences by the Bureau, and it has the primary responsibility. 46 If the Bureau had proceeded by way of reprimand, this issue could have been undercut. The Meehan and Goldwasser cases illustrate this, since the court pointed out that the conduct there involved continued after warning. The specific warning removes any issue of ambiguity. The vagueness problem is diluted, even when there has been no specific warning implementing the general regulation, when the sanction has only the ambiguous quality of reprimand. It is the kind of administrative action that can fairly be used to betoken a determination that there has been poor judgment, as contrasted with a suspension, which betokens past misconduct. We do not say that an agency is necessarily limited to a reprimand when there has been no warning, but rather that when an agency proceeds by way of reprimand it substantially defangs the bite of a claim of unfairness due to vagueness. 47 In the present case there has been a suspension notwithstanding the lack of a specific warning. This cannot be sustained unless there is a determination, of fair notice to the employee, that requires further administrative consideration on remand.