Opinion ID: 71635
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of the Employment Bar Provision

Text: 9 The employment bar provision of the PACA has survived numerous constitutional challenges. See, e.g., Siegel v. Lyng, 851 F.2d 412, 416-18 & n. 12 (D.C.Cir.1988) (rejecting claims that the employment bar provision violates the Due Process Clause or the prohibition of bills of attainder); Zwick v. Freeman, 373 F.2d 110, 117-20 (2d Cir.1967) (finding no violation of the Fifth Amendment right to earn a livelihood or the Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and rejecting the claim that the employment bar is a bill of attainder); Birkenfield v. United States, 369 F.2d 491, 494 (3d Cir.1966) (finding no violation of the Due Process Clause when a person, falling within the statutory definition of responsibly connected, is barred from employment without a hearing). Bama, however, raises an issue of first impression by alleging that the provision is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad on its face. Specifically, Bama contends that the statutory definition of employment as any affiliation implicates First Amendment rights of free speech and association and should be found unconstitutional. 10 The Supreme Court set forth the proper analysis for such a facial challenge in Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 102 S.Ct. 1186, 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982): 11 In a facial challenge to the overbreadth and vagueness of a law, a court's first task is to determine whether the enactment reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct. If it does not, then the overbreadth challenge must fail. The court should then examine the facial vagueness challenge and, assuming the enactment implicates no constitutionally protected conduct, should uphold the challenge only if the enactment is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. 12 Id. at 494-95, 102 S.Ct. at 1191 (footnotes omitted). Thus, we first determine whether the employment bar provision reaches First Amendment rights. 13 To determine whether the provision reaches a substantial amount of constitutionally protected activity, we consider both the ambiguous and unambiguous scope of the provision. See id. at 494 n. 6, 102 S.Ct. at 1191 n. 6. The Secretary argues that the provision does not implicate the First Amendment at all and instead regulates employment practices that are outside the reach of the First Amendment. The challenged provision defines employment as any affiliation ... with the business operations of a licensee, with or without compensation, including ownership or self employment. 7 U.S.C. § 499a(b)(10) (emphasis added). Thus, employment and employment-like activity are unambiguously prohibited because they involve affiliation with business operations. We find this unambiguous restriction to be constitutional. See Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502, 527-28, 54 S.Ct. 505, 512, 78 L.Ed. 940 (1934) (The Constitution does not guarantee the unrestricted privilege to engage in a business or to conduct it as one pleases.). 14 Bama argues that the employment bar provision, because of its ambiguity, chills free speech and association because a licensee and a person who is barred from employment could be found to violate the provision by simply affiliating 10 with each other. 11 In making this argument, Bama overlooks the language in the statute that restricts the definition of employment to any affiliation ... with the business operations of a licensee. 7 U.S.C. § 499a(b)(10) (emphasis added). Any affiliation ... with the business operations of a licensee is less ambiguous than any affiliation ... with ... a licensee, the language upon which Bama seems to base its argument. A person barred from employment could still affiliate with Bama and Bama employees so long as he did not affiliate himself with Bama's business operations. The term business operations, in layman's terms, means the day-to-day activities of a business. Any affiliation ... with the business operations of a licensee could include owning the business, working for the business, managing the business, selling to the business, buying from the business, negotiating for the business, or consulting with the business--with or without compensation. Thus, based on the restrictive language of the provision, the definition of employment arguably extends as far as to cover the relationship between a customer and a licensee. Restricting affiliation with the business operations, even if such restriction includes customers of a business, does not implicate substantial First Amendment rights. Thus, we find that any infringement of First Amendment rights is minimal and that the employment bar provision fails to implicate a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct under the First Amendment. See Village of Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 494, 102 S.Ct. at 1191. 15 Because we find that the employment bar provision fails to reach[ ] a substantial amount of constitutionally protected conduct, id., we summarily reject the overbreadth challenge and examine only Bama's vagueness challenge. Bama argues that the broad definition of employment as any affiliation is vague because it is unclear what types of activities are prohibited. A statute is vague if it fails to afford a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2298-99, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972). Thus, [v]ague laws are objectionable as transgressions of due process guarantees on two grounds: (1) they fail to provide fair warning to citizens charged with their observance, and (2) by failing to provide clear guidelines, they lend themselves to arbitrary applications by those charged with their enforcement. Familias Unidas v. Briscoe, 619 F.2d 391, 399 n. 8 (5th Cir.1980) (citing Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-09, 92 S.Ct. at 2298-99). Were employment defined as merely any affiliation with a licensee, it indeed might have been too vague to put licensees on notice as to prohibited conduct or to provide sufficient direction to the USDA; however, the statutory definition, any affiliation ... with the business operations of a licensee, refers to an actual involvement with those operations. Restricting such involvement is a clear application of the statute. Consequently, we cannot say that the employment bar provision is impermissibly vague in all of its applications, Village of Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S. at 495, 102 S.Ct. at 1191. 16 We further note that, in the absence of the implication of constitutionally protected conduct, [o]ne to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it [facially] for vagueness. Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974). We find that the definition of employment is sufficiently precise to preclude the type of activities that Mims performed at Bama--including working in the repacking operation and signing business checks and leases. Because Mims' activities fall squarely within the conduct precluded by the statute and because the employment bar is not vague in all its applications, we reject Bama's vagueness challenge of the employment bar provision of the PACA. 17