Justia Government Contracts Opinion Summaries

The issue in this appeal centered on whether a force majeure clause in a written contract between the county and a developer did not apply to the developer’s failure to obtain zoning approval in order to construct the cement plant required in the agreement. After review of the contract and the clause at issue here, the Supreme Court held that the clause was broad enough to apply. Accordingly, the Court vacated the district court's judgment and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Burns Concrete, Inc v. Teton County" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit in Virginia state court against Appellants and others, alleging that plaintiff's husband, Bernard W. Ripley, was exposed to asbestos contained in products Appellants manufactured for the Navy, and that Appellants are liable for failure to warn of asbestos hazards. Appellants removed the case pursuant to the federal officer removal statute to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The district court remanded to state court, citing longstanding precedent in the district that denies the government contractor defense in failure to warn cases. However, given the weight of opposing precedent and the rationales supporting the defense, the court held that the government contractor defense is available in failure to warn cases. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to consider whether Appellants have presented sufficient proof to warrant removal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1442. View "Ripley v. Foster Wheeler LLC" on Justia Law

Uhlig brought False Claims Act and retaliation claims against his former employer, Flour, which had contracted with the U.S. Army to provide electrical engineering work in Afghanistan. Uhlig says Fluor knowingly breached the terms of its Army contract by using unlicensed electricians as journeymen and billing the government for the services. Uhlig also contends Fluor wrongfully terminated Uhlig as a whistleblower in violation of 31 U.S.C. 3730(h). The district court granted summary judgment for Fluor. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. A plain reading of the contract documents is that Fluor needed to ensure that its electricians were qualified for the duties to which they were assigned by virtue of license, certification, training, or education. Nothing in the contract suggests that Fluor was required to elect one method of verifying its electricians’ qualification and that Fluor would then be limited to that method. Uhlig’s retaliation claim failed because he did not show that, at the time of the incidents at issue, a reasonable employee in Uhlig’s position would have believed Fluor was defrauding the government. View "Uhlig v. Fluor Corp." on Justia Law

CFI, comprised of former insiders from the pipe fitting industry, brought a False Claims Act qui tam action against Victaulic, a global manufacturer and distributor of pipe fittings. The complaint alleged that Victaulic, for many years, imported millions of pounds of improperly marked pipe fittings without disclosing that the fittings are improperly marked, thereby avoiding paying marking duties. CFI alleged that Victaulic imported approximately 83 million pounds of fittings from overseas, 2003-2013, and a miniscule fraction of Victaulic’s fittings for sale in the U.S. bear any indication of their foreign origin, with an even smaller percentage bearing country of origin markings required by 19 U.S.C. 1304. The district court dismissed with prejudice, rejecting Victaulic’s jurisdictional argument that CFI’s complaint was based primarily on publicly available information, but finding that it failed to cross the threshold from possible to plausible. The court stated that it believed the FCA’s reverse false claims provision did not cover failure to pay marking duties, but declined to rule on those grounds because the complaint was based on legal conclusions unsupportable by the facts alleged. The Third Circuit vacated. Failure to pay marking duties may give rise to reverse false claims liability. CFI’s complaint contains enough reference to hard facts, combined with other allegations and an expert’s declaration, to allege a plausible course of conduct by Victaulic to which liability would attach. View "Customs Fraud Investigations LLC v. Victaulic Co." on Justia Law

The power companies allege that they were overcharged for electricity during several months in 2000–2001 and sought to recover the overcharges from the federal government based on sales by the federal Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). The California Power Exchange (Cal-PX) and the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) were responsible for acquiring and distributing electricity between producers and consumers in California and setting prices for the electricity. The power companies argued that a contract existed between all consumers of electricity (including themselves) and all producers of electricity (including the government agencies) in California. The government argued that the contracts were only between the middleman entities—Cal-PX and Cal-ISO—and the consumers and producers individually. The Claims Court dismissed for lack of standing. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The companies lack privity of contract or any other relationship with the government that would confer standing. Under the Tucker Act, the Claims Court has jurisdiction over contract cases in which the government is a party, 28 U.S.C. 1491(a)(1); normally a contract between the plaintiff and the government is required to establish standing. The court noted that the companies may have claims against the parties with whom they are in contractual privity, the electricity exchanges. View "Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. United States" on Justia Law

Brookdale Senior Living hired Prather to review documentation related to thousands of Brookdale residents who had received home-health services from Brookdale. Medicare claims regarding those patients were on hold and Brookdale faced possible recoupment of payments it had received if it did not review and submit final Medicare claims. Prather noticed that the required certifications stating that the doctor had decided that the patient needed home-health services, established a plan of care, and met with the patient, were signed long after care was provided. Prather repeatedly raised this issue, but was rebuffed. Brookdale, facing financial disaster, began paying doctors to complete the paperwork months after treatment was provided. Prather thought that Brookdale was not just asking treating physicians to complete forgotten paperwork, but had provided the services without physician involvement and then found doctors willing to validate the care after-the-fact. Prather's suit under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3729, was dismissed. The Sixth Circuit reversed as to unlawful retention of payments. Completing certifications months after the fact was not “as soon as possible” after the plan was established, as required by regulations. Prather provided a detailed description of the alleged fraudulent scheme and her personal knowledge. Affirming dismissal of her false-records claim, the court concluded that Prather failed to plead with particularity the use of government forms to certify falsely that care had been provided under a doctor’s orders, or that unnecessary care had been provided. View "Prather v. Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc." on Justia Law

Kolbusz, a dermatologist, submitted thousands of claims to the Medicare system and private insurers for the treatment of actinic keratosis, a skin condition that sometimes leads to cancer. He received millions of dollars in payments. Convicted of six counts of mail or wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341, 1343, he was sentenced to 84 months in prison plus $3.8 million in restitution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The evidence permitted a reasonable jury to conclude that many, if not substantially all, of the claims could not have reflected an honest medical judgment and that the treatment Kolbusz claimed to have supplied may have failed to help any patient who actually had actinic keratosis. Because the indictment charged a scheme to defraud, the prosecutor was entitled to prove the scheme as a whole, and not just the six exemplars described in the indictment. The judge did not err in excluding evidence that, after his arrest and indictment, Kolbusz continued to submit claims to Medicare, and many were paid. “It would have been regrettable to divert the trial into an examination of Medicare’s claims-processing procedures in 2013 and 2014, rather than whether Kolbusz knew that he was submitting false claims in 2010 and earlier." View "United States v. Kolbusz" on Justia Law

The State and the City of Pass Christian’s entered into a forty-year lease. Under the terms of the lease, the City would use a portion of the Harrison County shoreline as a harbor and pursue related commercial development. Russell RP Services, LLC, filed its complaint against the State and the City on November 21, 2013. Russell RP asserted that it held an undivided one-half interest in a parcel of land lying between U.S. 90 and the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, and that the City and State, by executing the aforementioned lease, had effectuated a taking upon its property which required just due compensation. On August 18, 2015, the Harrison County Circuit Court granted the State and City's motions for summary judgment. Concluding that Russell Real Property lacked standing to pursue its claim of inverse condemnation, the circuit court dismissed without prejudice its claim of inverse condemnation. Russell RP appealed, but finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Russell Real Property Services, LLC v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Nutt was hit and killed by a U.S. Army soldier driving an Army truck in 1983. His family filed a claim under 28 U.S.C. 2674, the Federal Tort Claims Act. A 1985 Agreement provided that the government “agrees to purchase annuities which will pay:” $60,000 per year to Cynthia; lump-sum payments on specified anniversaries to Cynthia; lump-sum payments on specified anniversaries to James; plus $240,000 to Cynthia and a payment to the Nutts’ attorneys. The Agreement provided that “[t]he payments by the United States set forth above shall operate as full and complete discharge of all payments to be made to and of all claims which might be asserted.” The government purchased a structured annuity ELNY. ELNY went into receivership in 1991. In 2011, the New York State Liquidation Bureau informed the Nutts that their benefit payments would be reduced. In 2013, they began receiving payments reduced to approximately 45% of their expected benefits. They were informed that, as of 2015, they would not be receiving the anniversary payments. The Nutts alleged breach of the agreement. The Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal, finding that the government “was not obligated to guarantee or insure that annuity; its obligation ended at the initial purchase of the ELNY annuity.” View "Nutt v. United States" on Justia Law

Presser, who has 20 years of experience as a Wisconsin nurse and a nurse practitioner, began working with Acacia in 2011, providing psychiatric evaluations, managing patient medication, and providing other medical services. Presser alleges that Acacia and its owner, Freund, engaged in “upcoding,” provided unnecessary medical procedures, and then charged the federal and state governments for those expenses. The district court dismissed Presser’s qui tam action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3729 and the Wisconsin False Claims Act. Citing the need for particularity in pleading, the court noted Presser did not allege that the defendants actually sent any of the alleged claims or made any of the alleged statements to the state or federal governments. The Seventh Circuit affirmed that judgment except with respect to the claims regarding the use of an improper billing code, which were stated with sufficient particularity. Presser otherwise provided no medical, technical, or scientific context which would enable a reader of the complaint to understand why Acacia’s alleged actions amount to unnecessary care forbidden by the statute. View "Presser v. Acacia Mental Health Clinic, LLC" on Justia Law