Court Opinion

ID: 9472955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:15:28.003033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:14.549510
License: Public Domain

STARR, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part:
While I fully concur in Parts I — III of the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent as to Part IV. I would affirm the District Court’s dismissal of the federal claims against Litton Industries and Litton Bionetics (the “Litton corporate defendants”) on the ground that they fail to state a claim on which relief can be granted. In my view, special factors counsel strongly against implying a constitutional tort action or allowing injunctive relief against these private entities in the circumstances before us. I would also affirm the dismissal of the pendent state law claims as within the sound discretion of the District Court.
As the majority opinion notes, the District Court appears to have dismissed Dr. Reuber’s claims against the Litton corporate defendants for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction. Any such dismissal would be in error, as the majority rightly concludes. Nonetheless, this court can properly affirm the dismissal under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) if the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Boykin v. District of Columbia, 689 F.2d 1092, 1099 (D.C.Cir.1982) (under general rule that appellate court may affirm on a ground other than that adopted by the District Court, it was proper to affirm under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) a dismissal grounded upon lack of subject matter jurisdiction). Dr. Reuber’s complaint states a claim only if a constitutional damages action or prayer for injunctive relief can be brought against private individuals or entities under the circumstances presented here. The majority holds that such an action or prayer may be brought against the Litton corporate defendants. It is on that point that I am constrained to part company with my colleagues.
I
As the majority opinion notes, the availability of constitutionally based actions for money damages, which began in the Fourth Amendment setting with the watershed case of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), has been extended to permit actions implied under several provisions of the Bill of Rights. Despite this extension, however, it is clear that courts are not rigidly to imply a constitutional damages action in circumstances in which it would be inappropriate. To the contrary, the Supreme Court in Bivens expressly observed the absence “of special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress” before permitting the constitutional damages action there to go forward. In subsequent cases decided in Bivens’ wake, the Court has emphasized that the presence of such special factors may defeat the implication of a cause of action. See Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 2363, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983); Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 18, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 1471, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980); Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 245, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 2277, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979). And as we shall presently see, this circuit has already held in circumstances not dissimilar to those before us that special factors militate against implying a cause of action.
Clearly, a Bivens action can be brought only against an individual or entity engaged in governmental (or “state”) action,1 that is, one who is acting under color of *1070federal law. In order to prevail on his Bivens claim, Dr. Reuber would thus have to prove that officers or employees of the Litton corporate defendants conspired with federal officials to deprive him of his First Amendment rights.2 We cannot resolve this fact-bound issue here, since on a Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss we must take all of plaintiffs factual allegations as true.
However, as the majority notes, there is a purely legal question that can be addressed on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. That question is whether, in the circumstances here, a plaintiff should be able, by analogy to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, to bring a Bivens action against a private entity when he alleges that the private entity has engaged in state action or, conversely, whether constitutional tort claims can be brought only against federal officials. The majority holds that such an action may be brought against the Litton corporate defendants. I disagree, but do so without concluding that such an action may never lie against a private entity.
The Supreme Court has never had occasion to address this issue. But in addressing the scope of constitutional torts, the Supreme Court has seemed to contemplate only federal officials as defendants. For instance, in Davis v. Passman, supra, the Court fashioned an implied damages action for violation of the equal-protection component of the Due Process Clause in circumstances where a Member of Congress discharged a staff member on grounds of gender. A gender-based discriminatory discharge by a covered private employer would, of course, have run afoul of the express prohibitions of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but no such regulatory regime applied to Members of Congress. In examining this situation, where the failure to imply a cause of action under the Constitution would have left Ms. Davis wholly remediless, the Court emphasized that creation of a judicially implied federal cause of action was appropriate since the action “involves the application of the Fifth Amendment to a federal officer in the course of his federal duties.” Id. at 246 n. 23, 99 S.Ct. at 2277 n. 23 (emphasis added). See also Carlson v. Green, supra, 446 U.S. at 18, 100 S.Ct. at 1471 (1980) (stating that “Bivens established that the victims of a constitutional violation by a federal agent have a right to recover damages against the official in federal court despite the absence of any statute conferring such a right” (emphasis added)).
Only one circuit court has spoken directly to the issue whether private individuals or entities may ever be sued under Bivens. In Fletcher v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Bank, 496 F.2d 927 (1st Cir.1974), the First Circuit held flatly that a bank could not be sued under a constitutional tort theory. The court stated that “[w]hile federal officers may, at times, be subject to suit for unconstitutional behavior, there is no cause of action against private parties acting under color of federal law or custom.” Id. at 932 n. 8 (citation omitted).3 *1071Other circuits have assumed without deciding that private individuals may be sued under Bivens and then held that the requisite state action was not present.4 As far as I am aware, no circuit, however, has ever held a private party liable in a constitutional damages action.
In Zerilli v. Evening News Association, 628 F.2d 217 (D.C.Cir.1980), this court expressly left open the broad question whether Bivens liability extends to private individuals or entities under any circumstances, but decided that a defendant’s private status is one of the “special factors” that should “counsel[] hesitation in implying a Bivens cause of action in the absence of affirmative action by Congress.” Id. at 223 (quoting Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, supra, 403 U.S. at 396, 91 S.Ct. at 2004). The court also held that the values served by “free and vigilant press” would be harmed by allowing the suit to go forward.5 Id. at 224.
Thus, besides standing for the sound and sensible proposition that a defendant’s private status is in itself a factor counselling hesitation,6 Zerilli demonstrates that this court is to assess the circumstances of a suit against a private party with especial care to determine whether this particular kind of constitutional tort action is warranted. Thus, it should no longer be open to a panel of this court to hold that courts should entertain constitutional damage actions against private individuals to the same extent as actions against federal officials as long as state action is alleged. Since Zerilli held that the private status of the defendant is itself a factor counselling hesitation and dismissed the plaintiffs’ constitutional tort claim despite their allega*1072tion of state action, it is clear to me that, at least until such time that the law in this circuit is changed, a Bivens -type suit is not commensurate with section 1983 actions in its capacity to reach private individuals or entities.
This reading of the law of this circuit seems entirely unexceptional. Yet, the majority appears implicitly to overturn Zerilli, which of course it is powerless to do. In the majority’s view, a private actor may lose his private status shield if he acts so as to create an alliance with the Government. Since such action is obviously the only way in which a non-federal actor can come within the scope of section 1983 (and now Bivens) actions, private-status seems abruptly to have lost all effect in Bivens analysis. This U-turn in the law is much to be regretted, jettisoning as it does the more gradualistic approach embodied in Bivens analysis.
Indeed, I am firmly persuaded that the common-law method of adjudication, as manifested by Bivens and its progeny, is vastly superior to the more beguilingly simple determination either that a constitutional tort action against a private individual or entity is always unwarranted or, conversely, as the majority holds, that it is always permissible so long as a conspiracy between federal officials and private individuals or entities is alleged. In this respect, Justice Harlan’s comments in his Bivens concurrence are particularly a propos:
In resolving [the question of whether a constitutional tort is appropriate], it seems to me that the range of policy considerations we may take into account is at least as broad as the range of those a legislature would consider with respect to an express statutory authorization of a traditional remedy.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. at 407, 91 S.Ct. at 2010 (Harlan, J., concurring).7
In this case, three special factors militate against the implication of a constitutional tort claim, in addition to the critical factor that the claim is asserted against private parties. First, this litigation is directed against a corporate employer in the wake of disciplinary action taken against one of the firm’s employees; this is not simply a suit brought against private parties simpliciter. The underlying controversy that gave rise to this litigation arose in consequence of Dr. Reuber’s expressing his personal views on the very subject matter of his employer’s business activities, namely research into the carcinogenicity of chemicals. Cancer research was, after all, what Litton Bionetics’ business at Frederick was all about. Dr. Reuber was not reprimanded for activities bearing little if any relationship to his employer’s business, such as speaking out on non-NCI issues of public interest or moment.8 But that is not all. In addition to the substance of his activities, Dr. Reuber was also under fire for allegedly failing to follow company procedures, such as the charge that he failed to indicate clearly to readers of his manuscripts that the research and conclusions were his own, rather than those of the well-known cancer research center where he was employed. So too, the charge was made that Dr. Reuber had spent too much company time conducting his own independent research. It cannot be gainsaid that these issues, whatever their merits,9 go to the heart of the employment relationship.
*1073Federal judicial intrusion into that complex and sensitive relationship, in the utter absence of congressional authorization, is a giant leap not lightly to be undertaken. Unlike the majority, I would emphatically decline to undertake such a jump. Congress, of course, has seen fit over the years to regulate in detail private employment relationships, through laws ranging from anti-discrimination statutes to health and safety regulations. It has not, however, elected to regulate all incidents of the employment relationship, leaving to the marketplace and state law fields such as that into which Dr. Reuber now beckons us to enter.
The importance of exercising judicial restraint in the federal employment setting has been clearly stated by the Supreme Court. In Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367,103 S.Ct. 2404, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983), and Chappell v. Wallace, supra, the Court declined to create Bivens actions with respect to federal civil and military personnel matters. Guided by the fact that such employment relationships are “governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving meaningful remedies against the United States,” Bush v. Lucas, supra, 103 S.Ct. at 2406, the Court determined that it was best left to Congress to prescribe the scope of relief for federal employees whose First Amendment rights were violated by their superiors. Id. at 2412.10 Even though the dispute in Bush v. Lucas related to an employee’s constitutional rights, the ultimate question was deemed by the unanimous Court to be one of “ ‘federal personnel policy.’ ” Id. at 2412.
So too, Dr. Reuber’s claim squarely fits within the ambit of personnel policy of the two private employers. And, critically, the personnel policies are those of a government contractor carrying on vital research of great interest to the Congress and the Nation as a whole. Congress is scarcely a stranger to issues arising between federal agencies and government contractors carrying on federally funded activities, such as the cancer research activities which provide the backdrop for this litigation. Indeed, the relationships between federal agencies and their contractors are regulated extensively by statute and by regulations enjoying the force of law. Activities by such contractors are, moreover, subject to meticulous agency oversight — and at times congressional oversight — and audit by federal authorities. In a word, it is better for Congress, rather than the courts, to determine whether to launch into the deep waters of federal government contractors’ personnel policies.
Second, inasmuch as the thrust of Dr. Reuber’s complaint is that the reprimand contained inaccurate information and unfair accusations, he enjoys and indeed has already sought recourse to the common law of libel as an alternative remedy to redress his injuries. It is therefore more appropriate that Dr. Reuber be directed to this well-articulated body of law, rather than to require this court to create a novel and probably superfluous cause of action. This is particularly true since the practice of considering whether the plaintiff has an alternative remedy before implying a tort action from the Constitution is well established by Supreme Court precedent. See, *1074e.g., Davis v. Passman, supra, 442 U.S. at 245, 99 S.Ct. at 2277 (1979) (stating that “since respondent is no longer a Congressman ... equitable relief in the form of reinstatement would be unavailing. And there are available no other alternative forms of judicial relief.”).
To be sure, when the Court has refused to imply a tort action under the Constitution, it has looked to an alternative remedy under federal law. See, e.g., Bush v. Lucas, supra (holding that it would be “inappropriate” for the court to create a constitutional action on behalf of a federal employee for alleged defamation and alleged retaliatory demotion in light of the provisions passed by Congress to provide substantive and procedural remedies to federal employees). However, I do not think that the fact that the source of the alternative remedy is state law precludes us from treating it as a factor militating against the creation of a new cause of action against private parties. Private parties do not, of course, possess immunity that federal officials enjoy for common law torts, see Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 575, 79 S.Ct. 1335, 1341, 3 L.Ed.2d 1434 (1959) (holding that federal officials have absolute immunity from common law tort liability if their actions are “taken ... within the outer perimeter of [their] line of duty”).11 See also McKinney v. Whitfield, 736 F.2d 766 (D.C. Cir.1984) (holding that alleged assault and battery of an employee was not within a supervisor’s outer perimeter of his line of duty). Thus, Dr. Reuber, unlike Mr. Bivens, does not have to resort to a constitutional tort claim to recover damages. Cf. Bivens, supra. 403 U.S. at 410, 91 S.Ct. at 2012 (Harlan, J., concurring) (stating that “[f]or people in Bivens’ shoes, it is damages or nothing”).12
Third, since, as we have just seen, Dr. Reuber enjoys access to the common law remedies provided by the law of defamation, it is manifest that his cause of action here implicates First Amendment values which, as in Zerilli, counsel restraint on *1075our part. In the past two decades, the law of defamation, particularly in the context of alleged defamatory statements that, as here, find their way into the press and become themselves matters of public interest and comment, has been the avenue for the judiciary’s delicate effort to accommodate the competing values of an individual’s interest in reputation and the First Amendment value of “uninhibited, robust and wide-open” communication. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270, 84 S.Ct. 710, 720, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964).
It cannot be gainsaid that Dr. Reuber’s lawsuit touches upon First Amendment interests in full and open discourse and debate. Dr. Reuber, after all, was reprimanded after inserting himself into a scientific controversy in the midst of a raging debate over the health threat allegedly posed to the general public in consequence of the widespread spraying of malathion in California. And his lawsuit was based, at least in part, not on the reprimand simpliciter but on the fact that the reprimand found its way onto an EPA bulletin board and into a trade press publication. In essence, Dr. Reuber’s First Amendment complaint is an attack on a written communication which itself indisputably triggers First Amendment concerns.13
It is too late in the day to question that Litton and Bionetics, as private corporations, have First Amendment rights. See First National Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978) (holding that corporate speech enjoys the protection of the First Amendment). Their exercise plainly may be deterred by allegations such as Dr. Reuber’s that are essentially dependent on attacking the content of a corporate communication relating to the conduct of an employee. I need not, and do not, conclude that to imply a cause of action under the Constitution here would run afoul of the First Amendment; but I would conclude that, as in Zerilli, the presence of sensitive First Amendment considerations counsels caution and prudence in embracing Dr. Reuber’s novel claim against private parties. Moreover, in evaluating whether to imply a new, constitutionally based remedy, we cannot overlook the values of the free and uninhibited flow of information within the firms in enabling private corporations like Bionetics and Litton to operate efficiently.14 I would therefore decline to imply a constitutional tort action against either of the private corporate defendants.
II
In my view, Dr. Reuber’s prayer for injunctive relief based on alleged constitutional violations by two private companies likewise founders by virtue of the presence of factors that counsel the judiciary to exercise restraint in the absence of Congress’ express action. First and foremost, Dr. Reuber is seeking to create a cause of action against a private party, a factor of elemental importance in our evaluation of the appropriateness of creating a new cause of action for injunctive relief. The status of Litton and Bionetics as private actors renders the extraordinary measure of judicially fashioned injunctive relief even more intrusive in the private ordering of relationships and affairs than a less heroic prayer for money damages under Bivens. This is particularly true where, as here, the injunctive relief sought is mandatory in nature. Dr. Reuber is not seeking a prohibitory injunction that would require the private defendants to cease and desist from an ongoing practice claimed to impinge upon the litigant’s First Amendment inter*1076ests. Quite to the contrary, he is seeking an order requiring his “reinstatement” in the employ of Litton Bionetics.15 While Congress has fashioned such remedies in private employment settings, as in the law of Title VII, it has not elected to erect the exercise of constitutional rights, including First Amendment liberties, as a cause of action against private employers. By virtue of the manifest and continuing disruption of private relationships entailed by a mandatory injunction of the sort sought here, we should be guided away from fashioning yet another federal instrument of litigation, as opposed to reliance upon the rights and remedies carefully developed and refined over the centuries in the accumulated body of the common law.
The novelty of the majority opinion is reflected by the authorities on which it relies. Indeed, there should be no doubt whatever that the court is breaking entirely new ground. For instance, Bartel v. Federal Aviation Administration, 725 F.2d 1403 (D.C.Cir.1984), on which the majority heavily relies, did not involve private actors at all, but to the contrary, as the style of the case itself suggests, the action was brought against governmental entities or actors.16 That is, of course, the very stuff of which Bivens jurisprudence is and has been made. It is, in a word, one thing to sue the FAA and its officials, but it would be quite another to sue, say, a private airline which enjoys the benefit of government contracts, with no basis for the action either in federal statutory law or the common law.17 See also Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946); Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S.Ct. 340, 56 L.Ed. 570 (1912).
Ill
Since I would affirm the dismissal of Dr. Reuber’s federal claims, I would also uphold the District Court’s dismissal of the various common-law claims. The doctrine of pendent jurisdiction is, of course, a salutary principle promotive of judicial economy by permitting the plaintiff to try his or her entire case in one forum at one time. But as United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966), made clear, the application of this principle is entrusted to the sound discretion of the federal district courts. I can find no warrant here, where I would dismiss all the federal claims save for the Privacy Act claim, for overturning as an abuse of discretion the District Court’s dismissal of the pendent state law claims. Such matters should by and large be entrusted to the good judgment of our District Judges, who are peculiarly well situated to determine the most orderly and appropriate means for the just and expeditious resolution of federal civil litigation.

. For a Bivens -type claim, federal rather than state action must be alleged. Both sorts of action are usually referred to as "state action.” The term is used here to denote federal governmental action.

. Conspiracy with a state official can give rise to state action for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 155-56, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 1607-08, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970), the Supreme Court held that the under-color-of-state-law requirement of § 1983 would be satisfied if it was shown that a restaurant's employees conspired with the sheriff to deprive the plaintiff of federal rights. In Lugar v. Edmundson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 941, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2756, 73 L.Ed.2d 482 (1982), the Court again held that such a conspiracy can constitute state action.

. Although the First Circuit did not articulate at length its rationale for refusing as a general rule to imply a constitutional damages action in the absence of congressional action, reasons for such a conclusion may be readily supplied. First and foremost, there is less need for constitutional damages actions to restrain private individuals from delicts, since unlike federal officials they do not enjoy immunity from state common law torts. See infra at pp. 1074-75. Second, limiting the class of potential defendants to federal officials delimits the number and variety of suits that can be brought. Conversely, the ability to sue any individual under any Amendment by merely alleging a conspiracy with government officials may open wide the floodgates of litigation with little, if any, justification for such an extraordinary result. Finally, private individuals, unlike federal officials, must pay the cost of defending such suits; thus, a greater potential for harassment exists when *1071causes of action are implied against private individuals.

. For instance, in Fonda v. Gray, 707 F.2d 435, 437 (9th Cir.1983), the Ninth Circuit "assumed without deciding that private parties may be liable under a Bivens action under principles similar to those developed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” However, the court then held that the mere acquiescence of the defendant banks to a federal investigator’s request for financial information was insufficient to prove a conspiracy between the private parties and the Government and thus that the banks’ actions were not "sufficiently intertwined" with that of the FBI to hold them liable under Ms. Fonda's constitutional claims. Id. at 438. See also Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Co., 609 F.2d 355, 360 (9th Cir.1979) (suggesting that, in certain circumstances, it may be appropriate to "fashion [ ] a cause of action for damages against ... private defendants based on [Bivens ]”).
In Yiamouyiannis v. Chemical Abstracts Service, 521 F.2d 1392 (6th Cir.1975), the Sixth Circuit might be viewed as having assumed the existence of a constitutional tort action against a non-governmental defendant. The issue arose in a summary judgment context, and the court found that several issues of fact remained unresolved. Among those issues, and one "[fjundamental to appellant’s cause of action, ... [was] proof that his discharge was ‘state action.’ ” Id. at 1393. The court felt that the plaintiff should be allowed the opportunity to show that the defendant was "federally funded to the extent that his [plaintiff’s] discharge must be regarded as governmental action.” Id. The court’s view would be more appropriately characterized not as recognizing a constitutional tort action against a non-governmental defendant but rather as holding that, by being federally funded, an entity may become a federal actor. That line of analysis is clearly cut off by the later Supreme Court holding in Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 102 S.Ct. 2777, 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982) (state funding of a facility does not convert action by that facility into state action).

. In Stevens v. Morrison-Knudsen Saudi Arabia Consortium, 576 F.Supp. 516 (D.Md.1983), the court followed Zerilli's approach. In that case employees who had been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for the possession of marijuana brought a constitutional action against their private employer, alleging that it had violated their Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights in cooperating with the Saudi Arabian authorities. Plaintiffs alleged that their employer's action constituted state action because of the Army Corps of Engineers' supervision of their employer’s construction projects in Saudi Arabia. Before reaching the state action issue, the Stevens court determined that no Bivens cause of action should be implied against the private company. Relying on Zerilli, the court held that the employer's private status was a factor that counseled hesitation in implying an action to recover damages under the Constitution. Id. at 521. The court also emphasized that the alleged violations had taken place in a foreign country which had threatened representatives of the employer in order to obtain their cooperation. Id.

. For a discussion of reasons that the private status of the defendant should in itself be a factor counselling hesitation, see supra note 3.

. In evaluating whether a cause of action should be created, a legislature is properly concerned not only with the social benefits that such a cause of action would bring when proved, but also with the potential social harm that unfounded suits brought in the form of the novel cause of action would cause. In short, a rational legislature would weigh the utility brought about by justified suits against the disutility which would result from unjustified suits before creating a new cause of action. Similarly, in deciding whether a constitutional cause of action should be implied against a private individual in these circumstances, we are concerned with the systemic consequences of such an implication.

. We are not here faced with that issue, and accordingly, I express no views on it.

. The merits of these questions are not before us, and I therefore do not address them. We have, however, been apprised that in the Privacy Act proceeding in the District Court, the court determined in a September 7, 1984 memoran*1073dum opinion and order that certain allegations against Dr. Reuber set forth in the March 1981 letter of reprimand were in fact false, including the charge that he knowingly bypassed internal clearance procedures and that he implied that NCI and the Frederick Cancer Research Center endorsed his views. Memorandum Opinion at 31.

. It cannot be doubted that the regulatory and remedial regime crafted by Congress over the years failed to provide federal employees with the full panoply of remedial rights that would be enjoyed by virtue of creating a Bivens action. The Court could not have been clearer in assuming that (1) a violation of the federal employee’s rights had occurred, and (2) the civil service remedies were not as effective as an individual damages remedy and did not fully compensate the employee for the harm he suffered in consequence of the First Amendment violation. 103 S.Ct. at 2408. Notwithstanding this undisputed remedial gap, the unanimous Court left to the Congress the policy choice of bridging the gap or leaving it alone. We should do the same here.

. Judge Bork, in his concurring opinion, having raised the Litton corporate defendants to the status of federal actors, would grant the possibility of invoking official immunity as a defense. The qualified immunity that protects federal officials in Bivens actions would thus protect, in the appropriate circumstances, the Litton corporate defendants as well. While I disagree with his raising the Litton corporate defendants to the status of federal actors, it does seem logical, having so raised them, also to grant them the official immunity enjoyed by true federal actors.

. The majority contends that under Carlson v. Green, supra, the availability of an alternative remedy is relevant to Bivens analysis only when "explicitly provided by Congress [as] an equally effective, substitute remedy.” Majority Opinion at 1056 (emphasis in original). Carlson, however, concerned whether to pre-empt a Bivens action against a federal actor by virtue of the existence of an alternative statutorily provided remedy. Here we are being asked to create a Bivens-Yike action against two private corporations; it is thus appropriate to go beyond the factors found relevant in Carlson.
To be sure, Dr. Reuber also claims that his Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated because of Litton's and Bionetics’ failure to conduct a hearing before issuing the reprimand. As a practical matter, appellant’s libel claim will allow him to recover for any injury proximately caused by the reprimand if the Bionetics reprimand was untrue. If the reprimand was accurate, however, plaintiff would face many obstacles in recovering actual damages. In Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978), the Supreme Court held that in order to collect actual damages a person who was justifiably deprived of a constitutionally protected liberty interest, albeit without the process he was due, had to prove that his injury flowed from the defective process rather than the justifiable deprivation. Thus, in this case, Dr. Reuber would have to show that his injuries were not caused by the reprimand itself but by the absence of due process in issuing the reprimand.
Moreover, the factors which counsel against the creation of a First Amendment tort counsel with equal if not greater force against the creation of a Fifth Amendment tort against a private corporation in these circumstances. Since state libel law provides a remedy against a false reprimand, a corporation’s verbal disciplining of its employee does not run afoul of "the central thrust,” see Zerilli, 628 F.2d at 223, of the Due Process Clause. Cf. Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977) (holding that the post-deprivation state tort remedy constitutes the process that was due a child disciplined through the use of corporal punishment since predeprivation hearings would divert resources from a school’s essential pursuits).

. The majority suggests that this analysis mischaracterizes the gravamen of Dr. Reuber’s complaint. See Majority Opinion at 1059. I do not, however, maintain that Dr. Reuber’s complaint was based solely, or even in greatest part, on the posting or other publication of the letter of reprimand. Rather, I merely note that those events form a part of the basis of the complaint. To the extent that the publication contributes to that basis, First Amendment concerns are plainly involved and appropriately become relevant factors in our inquiry.

. That is not to say that employees aggrieved by corporate communication stand remediless, for that is the very purpose of the common law of defamation.

. It will be recalled that Dr. Reuber resigned, pursuant to medical advice, from his position at Litton Bionetics. He was thus not discharged by the direct action of his employer; that is, the employer did not order him to depart from the company’s precincts. Rather, Dr. Reuber rather expansively maintains that he was “constructively discharged” by virtue of the letter of reprimand and the unhappy events which followed in the wake of that letter.

. Of course, the majority, taking the plaintiff's allegations as true, holds that the Litton corporate defendants are federal actors. I do not believe that private entities, even when acting in concert with the federal government to the degree alleged here, may be equated with true federal actors with regard to the availability of injunctive relief.

. I recognize, of course, that suits have historically lain to enforce a federal statutorily created liability. See Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 394-95, 66 S.Ct. 582, 583-84, 90 L.Ed. 743 (1946).