Hinesburg Sand & Gravel Co., Inc. v. State

• Citation: 693 A.2d 1045,166 Vt. 337
• Decision Date: 28 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-572,95-572
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Vermont
• Parties: HINESBURG SAND & GRAVEL CO., INC. v. STATE of Vermont.

Page 1045

693 A.2d 1045

166 Vt. 337

HINESBURG SAND & GRAVEL CO., INC. v. STATE of Vermont.

No. 95-572.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

March 28, 1997.

Robert F. O'Neill, Norman Williams and Eric B. Fitzpatrick of Gravel & Shea, Burlington, for plaintiff-appellant.

Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and John K. Dunleavy, Assistant Attorney General, Montpelier, for defendant-appellee.

Before ALLEN, C.J., ¹ and GIBSON, DOOLEY, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.

DOOLEY, Justice.

Plaintiff Hinesburg Sand and Gravel Company appeals a decision of the Chittenden Superior Court, which dismissed its civil rights action against defendants State of Vermont and Patrick Garahan, Secretary of the Agency of Transportation, ² concluding that plaintiff lacked standing to bring the action. We affirm.

Plaintiff supplies crushed and uncrushed gravel for use as a sub-base material to builders of state and local roads who bid on road projects in accordance with state bid specifications. Gravel is the result of natural forces and consists of varying sizes of loose rock. It is different from stone, which must be blasted out of the earth at quarries or from ledges cut along the path of a new highway. Prior to 1989, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (Agency) considered stone and crushed gravel to be equivalent products and so treated them in its bid specifications. In 1989, it adopted a policy of not allowing crushed gravel to be used in areas where stone is available.

The Agency enjoys broad discretion to award highway-construction contracts "on terms as it deems to be in the best interest of the state." 19 V.S.A. § 10(1). It is authorized to award contracts on behalf of municipalities, and in such cases, "[a]ll work shall be done to the satisfaction of and in accordance with the requirements of the [A]gency." Id. § 309(b).

This case began as a dispute over the bid specifications on a project to widen Dorset Street in South Burlington. Plaintiff alleges that the state's policy has cost it sales and profits because it sells only crushed gravel and has been prevented from seeking subcontracts on state highway projects in the Chittenden County area, where crushed stone is available. The Agency asserts that crushed stone is stronger than crushed gravel, and is therefore a preferable sub-base material. Claiming that the Agency's preference for stone over gravel "lacks any legitimate rational basis," plaintiff sought relief under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, ³ asserting that defendant's policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The superior court concluded that, because plaintiff was merely a potential supplier to prospective bidders, it had no standing under the Equal Protection Clause to challenge the Agency's policy. The court also determined that plaintiff had no legally protected property or liberty interest under the Due Process Clause. Plaintiff appeals the court's conclusion with respect to the Equal Protection Clause.

We hold that Hinesburg Sand and Gravel lacks standing to assert an equal protection claim because its interest in competing on an equal basis with suppliers of crushed stone is neither a legally protected interest guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause nor is it within the "zone of interests" protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Furthermore, we hold that even if plaintiff had standing to bring this action, it has failed to state a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

In one of its most important decisions on standing, Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U.S. 113, 60 S.Ct. 869, 84 L.Ed. 1108 (1940), the United States Supreme Court analyzed the type of interest plaintiff claims here and found it inadequate to confer standing. In Lukens Steel, the Court held that bidders under the Public Contracts Act of 1936 did not have standing to challenge the Secretary of Labor's interpretation of that statute because they had failed to establish a legal interest that was protected at common law, id. at 129, 60 S.Ct. at 877-78, or that entitled them to relief under a relevant statute. Id. at 125-26, 60 S.Ct. at 875-76. It further held that Congress, in enacting the procurement statute, did not intend to confer standing on bidders to bring such a challenge. Id. at 128, 60 S.Ct. at 877. Combining doctrines of standing and judicial restraint, the Court reaffirmed "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." Id. at 127, 60 S.Ct. at 877.

We emphasize that plaintiff in this case does not even have the interest of the plaintiff in Lukens Steel. This plaintiff is not a bidder or a prospective bidder. At best, plaintiff has a hope that if the bid specifications are changed, it might enter into a subcontract with a company that might obtain a primary contract from defendant in the future. Standing law has evolved since Lukens Steel, and that evolution has often liberalized standing requirements. It has not, however, liberalized them sufficiently to allow this claim.

The doctrine of standing is " 'an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.' " Northeastern Florida Chapter of Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. City of Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 663, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 2301-02, 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)). Article III embodies various doctrines, including standing, mootness, ripeness and political question, that help define and limit the role of courts in a democratic society. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). One of the "passive virtues" of the standing doctrine is to promote judicial restraint by limiting the occasions for judicial intervention into the political process. See generally A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch 111-98 (2d ed. Yale Univ. Press 1986) (1962). Standing doctrine is fundamentally rooted in respect for the separation of powers of the independent branches of government. Allen, 468 U.S. at 752, 104 S.Ct. at 3325.

Standing embodies a core constitutional component and a prudential component of self-imposed judicial limits. Id. at 751, 104 S.Ct. at 3324-25. To establish standing in an action brought under the Equal Protection Clause, plaintiff must at an irreducible minimum demonstrate the following constitutional elements: (1) injury in fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability. See, e.g., Associated Gen. Contractors, 508 U.S. at 663-64, 113 S.Ct. at 2301-02. The prudential elements of standing include the general prohibition on a litigant's raising another person's legal rights, the rule against adjudication of generalized grievances, and "the requirement that a plaintiff's complaint fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked." Allen, 468 U.S. at 751, 104 S.Ct. at 3324; see also Air Courier Conference of America v. American Postal Workers Union, 498 U.S. 517, 524-25, 111 S.Ct. 913, 918-19, 112 L.Ed.2d 1125 (1991) (employees of Postal Service lacked standing because they were not within zone of interests of statutes creating national postal monopoly).

Injury in fact is defined as the " 'invasion of a legally protected interest.' " Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, ----, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 2104, 132 L.Ed.2d 158 (1995) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. at 2136). Determining whether plaintiff has suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest requires inquiry into the substance of plaintiff's claim. For example, in International Primate Protection League v. Administrators of Tulane Educational Fund, 500 U.S. 72, 111 S.Ct. 1700, 114 L.Ed.2d 134 (1991), a state court action challenging research on monkeys was removed to federal court, where the defendants argued that the plaintiffs had no standing to bring the controversy before the court. The United States Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge removal of their case from state to federal court, even though they might have lacked standing to have the federal courts adjudicate the merits of their claims. Id. at 76-78, 111 S.Ct. at 1703-05. "Standing does not refer simply to a party's capacity to appear in court. Rather, standing is gauged by the specific common-law, statutory or constitutional claims that a party presents." Id. at 77, 111 S.Ct. at 1704; see also W. Fletcher, The Structure of Standing, 98 Yale L.J. 221, 229 (1988) (standing "should be seen as a question of substantive law, answerable by reference to the statutory and constitutional provision whose protection is invoked").

The zone-of-interests test similarly requires us to examine the substance of plaintiff's claim. As originally formulated in Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970), the test is "whether the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question." Id. at 153, 90 S.Ct. at 830 (emphasis added). Although the United States Supreme Court has not expressly applied the zone-of-interests test to an equal protection claim, its application is appropriate unless Congress has manifested a contrary intent. See Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, ----, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 1161, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997) (zone-of-interests test is among standing requirements of general application); Adams v. Watson, 10 F.3d 915, 918 n. 7 (1st Cir.1993) (applying zone-of-interests test to Commerce Clause); Peoples Gas, Light & Coke Co. v. United States Postal Serv., 658 F.2d 1182, 1195 n. 10 (7th Cir.1981) (duty to apply zone-of-interests test is nondiscretionary). We therefore turn to the substance...