Court Opinion

ID: 9586505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:12:12.067133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:41.452243
License: Public Domain

Carrigan, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion for the following reasons:
I do not believe that petitioner had any legal right to do business with the State of West Virginia, and specifically with the Department of Welfare. The department’s medical service program was 'enacted and placed in operation *395for the benefit of welfare recipients and not for the benefit of the vendors of pharmaceutical services.
As Mr. Justice Black stated in Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U.S. 113, 127-28 (1940):
Like private individuals and businesses, the Government enjoys the unrestricted power to produce its own supplies, to determine those with whom it will deal, and to fix the terms and conditions upon which it will make needed purchases. Acting through its agents as it must of necessity, the Government may for the purpose of keeping its own house in order lay down guideposts by which its agents are to proceed in the procurement of supplies, and which create duties to the Government alone. * * * [The Public Contracts] Act does not depart from but instead embodies the traditional principle of leaving purchases necessary to the operation of our Government to administration by the executive branch of Government, with adequate range of discretion free from vexatious and dilatory restraints at the suits of prospective or potential sellers. It was not intended to be a bestowal of litigable rights upon those desirous of selling to the Government; it is a self-imposed restraint for violation of which the Government — but not private litigants — can complain. * * * Courts have never reviewed or supervised the administration of such an executive responsibility even where executive duties “require an interpretation of the law.” Judicial restraint of those who administer the Government’s purchasing would constitute a break with settled judicial practice and a departure into fields hitherto wisely and happily apportioned by the genius of our polity to the administration of another branch of Government. (Emphasis added.)
Even in Gonzalez v. Freeman, 334 F.2d 570, 574 (D.C. Cir. 1964), the court recognized that “It is equally correct, broadly speaking, to say that no citizen has a ‘right,’ in the sense of a legal right, to do business with the government.”
Unfortunately, in the Gonzalez case, the court having recognized the lack of such “legal right,” then illogically *396proceeded to make an exception on the basis that since the government had entered into a contract, it would result in a severe economic loss to Gonzalez not to grant the enforcement of the right, which the court had stated did not exist; and apparently further qualifying the exception’s applicability on whether the economic loss would be great or small. Such reasoning is certainly not affording “equal protection” to all.
Even accepting the Gonzalez case as correctly stating the law, as the majority did, it is distinguishable in that in Gonzalez the “debarment,” i.e., the suspension, was made permanent without a hearing, while in the case before us petitioner was only suspended pending investigation.
Pursuant to Code, 9-4-1, as amended, respondent promulgated various rules and regulations, including regulation 520.1 dealing with “Order of Suspension” and regulation 520.2 “Causes for Suspension.” It therefore appears that respondent was authorized to suspend petitioner’s participation in this program pending investigation.
The demands of due process do not require a hearing, at the initial stage or at any particular point or at more than one point in an administrative proceeding so long as the requisite hearing is held before the final order becomes effective. Opp Cotton Mills, Inc. v. Administrator, 312 U.S. 126, 152-53 (1941).
The record shows that petitioner participated in the medical service program from December 16, 1969 to June 28, 1971, and that during this eighteen months period he sold between $100,000 and $108,000 in drugs to welfare recipients. During the period petitioner had participated in this program, he had been paid all but approximately $36,000, which he claims to be due. An investigation of these sales had been in process for about seven months, although the suspension of petitioner had only existed for four months prior to his application to this Court.
*397In view of the public interest involved in determining that proper drugs are dispensed and also in view of the expenditure of public funds in the amount of over $100,-000, as well as the probable difficulty in verifying petitioner’s invoices, I do not feel that respondent has been afforded ample time to complete its investigation. Assuming, for this purpose, that petitioner had a right to a hearing, even under Gonzalez and Opp Cotton Mills, it would not be necessary to hold such a hearing until it was determined that petitioner would be permanently barred from participating in the program.
The West Virginia decisions cited are, in my opinion, distinguishable from the present case in that under the facts of those cases the party was deprived from earning a living by being prevented from engaging in his business or calling, or was refused a hearing before final determination. In the case before us, petitioner has only been deprived of one customer and he can still continue his business.
For these reasons, I would refuse the writ of mandamus.