Opinion ID: 3011674
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the bivens and fifth amendment claims

Text: The controlling question with respect to Black Smokers' claims under Bivens, supra, and the federal Constitution is 15 whether defendant tobacco companies should be r egarded as federal actors. In Bivens, the Supr eme Court found that a damages claim arose under the federal Constitution where a federal agent acting under color of federal authority violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. A Bivens action, which is the federal equivalent of the S 1983 cause of action against state actors, will lie where the defendant has violated the plaintiff 's rights under color of federal law. Alexander v. Pennsylvania Dep't of Banking, No. Civ. 935510, 1994 WL 144305, at  (E.D. Pa. April 21, 1994). Black Smokers also make direct constitutional claims under the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments. As the District Court noted in its opinion, the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to actions of the states and not to the federal government; therefore, the District Court properly granted defendants' motion to dismiss the Fourteenth Amendment claims. For Black Smokers' Bivens and Fifth Amendment claims to succeed, Black Smokers must establish that defendants are federal actors. Because defendants' conduct cannot properly be r egarded as federal, these claims must fail. In order to determine whether the conduct of a private party should be attributed to the federal gover nment, courts apply the state action analysis set forth by the Supreme Court in Lugar v. Edmonson Oil Co. , 457 U.S. 922, 937-42, 102 S.Ct. 2744 (1982). The Supreme Court succinctly summarized the two-part test of Lugar in its decision in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete, 500 U.S. 614, 620, 111 S.Ct. 2077 (1991). There, the Court stated that Lugar requires courts to ask first whether the claimed constitutional deprivation resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in [federal] authority . . . and second, whether the private party charged with the deprivation could be described in all fairness as a [federal] actor. Leesville Concrete, 500 U.S. at 620 (applying Lugar) (citations omitted). Citing American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 119 S.Ct. 977 (1999), Black Smokers argue that their claims satisfy the first pr ong of Lugar insofar as defendants had acted with knowledge of and pursuant to the statute in question: the Labeling Act. This argument is unavailing because it fails to allege a deprivation of a right protected by the Constitution. 16 Moreover, the averment that defendants should be subject to the mandates of the Constitution because their activities have been allegedly approved by the federal government through defendants' compliance with the Labeling Act is unconvincing. The mere fact that a tobacco company has complied with the requirements of a federal law cannot suffice to transform it into a federal actor any more than the compliance of a myriad of private enterprises with federal law and administrative regulations could of itself work such a transformation.2 Additionally, because the alleged wrongdoing (the targeted advertising of mentholated tobacco products to African-Americans) is not required by the Labeling Act, it is difficult to view such targeted advertising as federal action by defendants which can serve as the basis for a Bivens action. The second requirement of the Lugar analysis -- that the private party could in all fairness be r egarded as a federal actor -- may be met under one of three interr elated theories of government action: (i) the public function test, (ii) the close nexus test and (iii) the symbiotic relationship test. In addition, Black Smokers discern in case law a fourth, more synthetic totality of the circumstances test, the existence of which is doubtful, as we explain infra. In order to determine which test should be applied to a given set of facts, courts must investigate carefully the circumstances of each case. See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 722, 81 S.Ct. 856 (1961); Community Med. Center v. Emergency Med. Services, 712 F .2d 878, 880 (3d. Cir. 1983) (citations omitted). Regar dless of what test is ultimately applied, the object of the inquiry is to determine whether a private entity has exercised powers traditionally reserved exclusively to the government, Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 352, 95 S.Ct. 449 (1974), or whether the defendant exercised power possessed by virtue of [federal] law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed in the authority of [federal] law. Groman v. T ownship of Manalapan, 47 F.3d 628, 639 n.17 (3d. Cir. 1995) (citations omitted). The gravamen of the public function test is whether the _________________________________________________________________ 2. See our discussion of the public function test in this Section, infra. 17 government is effectively using the private entity in question to avoid a constitutional obligation or to engage in activities reserved to the government. See Goussis v. Kimball, 813 F.Supp. 352, 357 (E.D. Pa. 1993). We cannot agree with Black Smokers' assertion that defendants' actions satisfy the public function test. The public function test is the most rigorous of the inquiries. In Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. at 1004-5, the Supreme Court stressed that the traditionally public function must be the exclusive prerogative of the [gover nment], id. (citation omitted). Courts generally emphasize this exclusivity requirement and thus seldom find that high standard to have been satisfied. Mark v. Borough of Hatboro, 51 F.3d 1137, 1142 (3d. Cir. 1995). Even in cases involving arguably semi-public functions, such as pr oviding utility services, see Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, or furnishing remedial education to high school students, see Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 102 S.Ct. 2764 (1982), the Supreme Court has declined to characterize such activities as government functions for purposes of the public function analysis. In the case at bar, the action complained of is the lawful sale and marketing of a legal, albeit federally r egulated, consumer product: a private rather than public, and a fortiori not exclusively public, function. Even if the activities at issue extended, as Black Smokers suggest, beyond the mere marketing and sale of mentholated tobacco products to the testing and labeling of such products, Black Smokers' argument would fail because it would not meet the exclusivity requirement under the public function test. Given that many products, including mentholated tobacco, are tested, marketed and labeled by their manufacturers, often in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements, such activities cannot be characterized as the exclusive prerogative of the government. As the District Court noted, it is simply inaccurate to suggest that the testing, labeling and marketing of cigarettes is the exclusive pr ovince of the federal government. Finally, Black Smokers' averment that defendants' compliance with various federal labeling requirements transforms defendants into government actors is without support in applicable case law. Such 18 propositions have been flatly rejected by the Supreme Court on several occasions; see American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999); Blum v. Y aretsky, 457 U.S. at 1004; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co ., 419 U.S. 345, 350 (1974) (holding that the fact that a business is subject to government regulation does not by itself convert the business's action into that of the government). Black Smokers' allegations that defendants' actions satisfy the close nexus test under the gover nment action analysis are also unavailing. As with the public function analysis, Black Smokers apparently discer n the purported nexus between the private action complained of and the federal government in the operation of the Labeling Act. They assert that the Labeling Act encourages tobacco manufacturers to conceal the dangers of mentholated cigarettes, mandates inadequate warnings on such products and preempts most tort actions against defendants. However, because the Labeling Act does not compel, influence or encourage the actions upon which this suit is based -- the targeted marketing of menthol cigarettes to African-Americans -- but rather only requires the disclosure of certain risks on tobacco pr oduct packaging, defendants' conduct in compliance with the Labeling Act does not create the close nexus necessary for a finding of state action. See Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830 (1982); American Mfrs. Mut. Inc. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. at 52; Goussis v. Kimball, 813 F .Supp. at 357. Additionally, Black Smokers' close nexus ar gument is defective to the extent that it does not allege the violation of a federal right, a prerequisite under that analysis. See Goussis v. Kimball, 813 F.Supp. at 357. Black Smokers' attempt to classify this case under the symbiotic relationship category of state action cases is similarly tenuous. In the seminal, albeit somewhat idiosyncratic, case of Burton v. Wilmington Parking Auth., supra, the Supreme Court held that a cof fee shop, which leased property located in a government owned parking garage, was integrated with the parking facility as an organic part of the government operation and was party to a mutually beneficial relationship with the government. Out of these facts arose the symbiotic r elationship test, which 19 asks whether the government has insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with the defendant. Burton v. Wilmington Parking Auth., 365 U.S. at 725. Black Smokers' allegations concerning defendants' relationship with the federal government prove both too little and too much; and in any case, they scar cely suffice to make out a symbiotic relationship within the meaning of Burton. Black Smokers aver that (i) the government benefits from its relationship with defendants by virtue of collecting enormous tax revenues from the tobacco industry and (ii) the interests of the gover nment and defendants are explicitly intertwined under the terms of the Labeling Act, id. While these aver ments are undoubtedly true, they are inadequate to demonstrate government action. Virtually all enterprises are subject to tax collection and, to varying degrees, to r egimes of administrative regulation; were these attributes sufficient to satisfy the test of Burton, substantially all businesses in the country would effectively become federal actors. See Hadges v. Yonkers Racing Corp., 918 F .2d 1079, 1082 (2d Cir. 1990). Moreover, although Burton retains much of its precedential value, it should be noted that the Supreme Court has recently cast some degree of doubt upon that decision. In American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, supra, which reversed our finding that certain private insurance companies were to be regarded as state actors under Burton, the Supreme Court noted that  Burton was one of our early cases dealing with `state action' under the Fourteenth Amendment, and later cases have r efined the vague `joint participation' test embodied in that case. Id., 526 U.S. at 57 (citations omitted).3 _________________________________________________________________ 3. We recently applied the doctrine of Burton, as refined by the Supreme Court in Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 92 S.Ct. 1965 (1972), in Crissman v. Dover Downs Entertainment Inc., No. 00-5178, ___ F.3d ___ (2001). The instant case is distinguishable from Crissman because in the latter case, which involved state-licensed harness racing and related gambling activities, state involvement extended far beyond regulation and revenue collection. In Crissman, the harness racing operator functioned as the state's agent with r espect to video lottery operations and was obligated to enforce a state statute relating to harness racing. See Crissman, ___ F.3d at ___ - ___ [Section III]. Such an agency relationship coupled with law enfor cement authority confers upon the operator attributes of government sovereignty wholly absent in the federal government's regulation of tobacco manufacturers. 20 Finally, Black Smokers contend that an expansive, factoriented totality of the circumstances approach to the question of government action exists wholly apart from the three inquiries discussed supra and that such an approach is grounded in Third Circuit cases such as Sullivan v. Barnett, 139 F.3d 158 (3d Cir . 1998), rev'd 526 U.S. 40 (1999), and Mark v. Borough of Hatbor o, 151 F.3d 1137 (3d. Cir. 1995). Although our cases place the factual context in which the case arises, Sullivan v. Bar nett, 139 F.3d at 170, at the heart of the government action analysis, such emphasis constitutes no more than proper adherence to the methodology set forth in the government action cases discussed supra and consequently cannot be said to represent a novel development in or distinct branch of government action doctrine. Purporting to use this asserted totality of the circumstances test as the basis of their r emaining government action analysis, Black Smokers compare the instant case to Edmonson v. Leesville Concr ete, 500 U.S. 614 (1991). Leaving aside the question whether the federal courts have ever explicitly recognized Black Smokers' totality of the circumstances appr oach, the facts of the instant case are readily distinguishable from those of Edmonson. In Edmonson, the Supreme Court held that lawyers' use of peremptory challenges was pursuant to a course of government action and consequently that any racially discriminatory use of such challenges violates jurors' equal protection rights. Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete, 500 U.S. at 622-23. The sine qua non of the Court's decision in Edmonson was the pr esence of government involvement so pervasive in the context of the challenged actions as to render such actions virtually inseparable from the participation of the gover nment. The Edmonson Court therefore emphasized that peremptory challenges simply could not exist without the government's significant participation. Id. at 622. The Court went on to characterize the jury as a quintessential government body, having no attributes of a private actor, id. at 624, and to note that peremptory challenges are performed in the context of an inar guably traditional government function: trial by jury. Id . By contrast, in the instant case, the federal government does not in any 21 manner design, mandate or approve the alleged racially targeted advertising of which Black Smokers complain, notwithstanding the fact that such advertising is subject to certain requirements and restrictions set forth in the Labeling Act. Black Smokers' insistence at oral ar gument that the preemption of certain categories of tort actions by the Labeling Act in some way constitutes the exer cise of a traditional government function or significant governmental participation within the meaning of Edmonson is also without support in applicable precedent; indeed, such preemption provisions are commonplace in federal product safety and information disclosure legislation. See, e.g., Federal Hazardous Substances Act, 15 U.S.C. 1261 et seq., note (b)(1)(A); Moss v. Parks Corp., 985 F .2d 736, 739-41 (4th Cir. 1993) (construing preemption provision of Federal Hazardous Substances Act). Moreover , the marketing and advertising practices of defendants, including their research and safety testing activities, are functions typical of various private enterprises and, even in light of the federal regulation to which such activities are subject under the Labeling Act and other legislation, are difficult to regard as traditional government function[s] within the meaning of Edmonson.