Opinion ID: 524252
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Constitutionality of the Presently Responsible Standard

Text: 54 Robinson challenges the DLA's decision on the ground that the standard of conduct to which FHC was held under the FAR is so vague as to deny it the notice required by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. His premise is our prior holding that a corporation may have a right to be free from stigmatizing governmental defamation such that a false government statement that has an adverse effect on the company's ability to do business implicates the Due Process Clause. Old Dominion Dairy Products, Inc. v. Secretary of Defense, 631 F.2d 953, 961 (D.C.Cir.1980). Assuming that FHC had a protected interest under this standard, which the Government does not specifically dispute, we hold that the regulation under which FHC was debarred is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to this case. 55 To reiterate, the regulation specifically permits an agency to debar a contractor if it has been convicted of, or is subject to a civil judgment for, inter alia, fraud in connection with obtaining a government contract, a violation of the antitrust laws, or bribery, or for [a]ny other cause of so serious or compelling a nature that it affects the present responsibility of a Government contractor.... 48 C.F.R. Sec. 9.406-2. The [a]ny other cause provision must be read in the context of the other provisions listing specific cause[s]. Since fraud, bribery, and antitrust violations are specifically listed as acts for which conviction or a civil judgment may result in immediate debarment, it could hardly come as a surprise to FHC that paying a government contract official as part of a bidrigging scheme would come within the scope of the [a]ny other cause provision. One to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness. Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974). 56 Nor are we persuaded by Robinson's cognate argument that the regulation is impermissibly vague because it is utterly without guidance as to what steps a contractor must take in order to give assurance that it is presently responsible after a prior fall from grace. On the facts of this case, the company is simply in no position to claim a want of notice, and certainly none so stark as to deny it due process. 57 FHC, in its original October 20, 1987 submission, presented the trust agreement as its chosen instrument for allaying any concern the Government might have as to its present responsibility, and in that context represented that the company was willing to take any steps deemed necessary by the DLA to protect the Government's interests. When FHC received notice on November 5 that the DLA had doubts as to whether a trust arrangement sufficiently protected the Government's interests, however, it neither proposed other steps that the company might take in order to provide assurance of its present responsibility nor requested that the Government suggest any specific steps to it. Rather, in both its November 6 and November 10 letters, it simply stood on its ground that the trust was adequate. It cannot be heard now to complain that it did not know what more was required of it, after maintaining before the agency that it need not do anything more in order to show that it was presently responsible. 58 Insofar as Robinson's argument is that the regulation is unconstitutional on its face because it does not specify what a contractor must do in order to establish present responsibility, we need not address it because the company may not press a facial due process attack concerning the [regulation] after the [regulation] has been applied fairly to [it]. Hastings v. Judicial Conference of the United States, 829 F.2d 91, 105 (D.C.Cir.1987).