Opinion ID: 382661
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Existence of a Corporate Liberty Interest

Text: 34 The Government's first claim, that a corporation may not possess a due process liberty interest, is without merit. 18 The definition of liberty under the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments has never been stated with exactness. Nevertheless, it is clear that the concept encompasses more than mere freedom from bodily restraint, and includes the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). Admittedly, a corporation may not be bodily seized. Nor may it marry or bring up children. But a corporation may contract and may engage in the common occupations of life, and should be afforded no lesser protection under the Constitution than an individual to engage in such pursuits. 19 35 The Government would limit a corporation to due process rights founded on property interests. Appellee's brief, p. 15-16. Chief Justice Burger, however, while still a member of this court, made clear in Gonzalez v. Freeman, 334 F.2d 570 (D.C.Cir.1964), that it is not the entitlement to a Government contract which gives a Government contractor standing to challenge the procedures by which that contractor is barred from Government business. Considering the right of (among others) the Thos. P. Gonzalez Corporation to challenge a debarment from Government contracts on due process grounds, the Chief Justice stated: 36 Thus to say that there is no right to government contracts does not resolve the question of justiciability. Of course there is no such right ; but that cannot mean that the government can act arbitrarily, either substantively or procedurally, against a person or that such person is not entitled to challenge the processes and the evidence before he is officially declared ineligible for government contracts. 37 (emphasis in original). 20 Id. at 574. Similarly, we hold that Old Dominion is entitled to challenge the Government actions in this case on due process grounds, notwithstanding the fact that ODDPI had no property interest in the contract awards. 21 38