Justia Government Contracts Opinion Summaries

In 2009, plaintiff applied for an IT specialist position with the Miami VA Healthcare System. He did not get the job and, after exhausting rights before the Department of Labor, filed an appeal, asserting that the VA violated his rights relating to veteran's preference. The AJ concluded that the Merit Systems Protection Board had no authority to review the merits of the VA’s non-selection of plaintiff. The Board agreed. The Federal Circuit vacated. There is no way to determine whether the Veterans' Preference Act (58 Stat. 390) has been violated without examining the grounds for non-selection. The Board has jurisdiction to determine whether the VA properly afforded plaintiff the right to compete for the job and properly determined, in accordance with 5 C.F.R. § 302.302(d), that he was not qualified for the position View "Lazaro v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs" on Justia Law

Illinois law provides that workers at public works projects must be paid not less than general prevailing rate of hourly wages for work of a similar character on non-federal public works in the locality, 820 ILCS 130/3. The public body awarding the contract is required to determine prevailing wage, but the Department of Labor conducts annual investigations of prevailing wage for each type of construction and demolition work in each locality and, in practice, public bodies simply adopt that determination. Landscape contractors who do non-federal public works projects sued the Department, arguing that it violated the due process clause by delegating ascertainment of prevailing wage to private entities, namely a labor union and contractors with which it has a collective bargaining agreement. The district judge granted summary judgment in favor of the Department. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the contractors did not object to the prevailing wage determination.View "Beary Landscaping, Inc. v. Costigan" on Justia Law

Defendant (principal contractor) sub-contracted with Stevens for work on military personnel housing at the Army base at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Stevens retained plaintiff to perform re-roofing. Plaintiff completed satisfactory work at the instruction of defendant and Stevens, but was not paid in full. Plaintiff originally sued under the Miller Act, 40 U.S.C. 3133, which provides federal question jurisdiction Plaintiff conceded at trial that defendants failed to secure a bond as required under the Miller Act. The federal claim was dismissed. The district court entered judgment in favor of plaintiff on a Louisiana-law breach of contract claims and allowed plaintiff to amend to allege diversity that existed at the time of the original complaint. The court declined to consider defendants' newly submitted evidence concerning diversity. The Fifth Circuit vacated. The district court may not have had proper subject-matter jurisdiction from the instant plaintiff filed; it incorrectly held that it had discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims, assuming that it had proper subject-matter jurisdiction under the Miller Act. The Miller Act claim was too attenuated to establish proper federal question jurisdiction and could not support supplemental jurisdiction.View "Arena. v. Graybar Electric Co., Inc.," on Justia Law

In 2010, the court of claims awarded owners $3,043,051, plus interest, for the temporary taking of a blanket easement over five parcels in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego County, California, limiting the government's liability to the period April, 1999 to October, 2008. The taking was the result of Border Patrol activities outside the boundaries of an easement that had been purchased by the government for those purposes, and included creating new roads, constructing a permanent tented structure, and installing under-ground motion-detecting sensors. The Federal Circuit affirmed the limitation of liability to five parcels and the stated time period, but reversed the calculation of damages. The claims court erred in concluding that the taking was temporary rather than a permanent physical taking. The government stipulated that its easement was "perpetual" and has not removed its equipment. View "Otay Mesa Prop. v. United States" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Steel Products Procurement Act,73 Pa. Cons. Stat. 1881-1887, prohibits the use of temporary bridges made out of foreignsteel on public works projects. The district court rejected a claim that the law was preempted by the Buy America Act, 23 U.S.C. 313, and that it violated the Commerce Clause, Contract Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The Third Circuit affirmed. The federal Act contemplates more restrictive state laws. The state law was authorized by Congress, is rational, and did not, at its enactment, impair plaintiff's existing contracts. View "Mabey Bridge & Shore, Inc. v. Schoch" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, certified by the city as a minority-owned business eligible for favored treatment, sells a variety of products. The city is virtually its only customer. Early in 2005 the city began to suspect that plaintiff was a broker rather than a wholesaler, which would make it ineligible to bid for contracts as an MBE. Plaintiff had only six employees, though it claimed to have a warehouse. The city never completed its investigation, so plaintiff retains its certification. The city also believed that the company had shorted it on a shipment of aluminum sign blanks, and ultimately debarred it from dealing with the city. The company sued immediately and obtained a temporary restraining order; debarment was in effect for only eight days. The city abandoned its attempt to debar the company. The district court then ruled in favor of defendants. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Claims by the principals in the company were frivolous, given that they continued to be employed by the company. The temporary diminution in business did not amount to destruction of the company nor did it constitute retaliation. Plaintiff did not prove breach of contract. View "Chicago United Indus. v. City of Chicago" on Justia Law

Former New Mexico state treasurer Defendant-Appellee Robert Vigil and his former deputy, co-Defendant Ann Marie Gallegos allegedly hatched a plan to find work for his political rival's wife so that the rival couldn't challenge him in the next election. According to the complaint, Defendants solicited bids for a state contract and insisted that any interested contractor hire Samantha Sais (the wife) on any terms she wished. Plaintiff SECSYS agreed to the plan in principle, but ultimately could not come to terms with Ms. Sais. When negotiations broke down, Defendants allegedly chose another contractor who agreed to Ms. Sais' terms. Mr. Vigil was ultimately indicted, convicted, and sentenced to prison for his role in this scheme. Plaintiff sought damages from Mr. Vigil and Ms. Gallegos in their individual capacities for violating its Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection for discriminating against the company when it refused to acquiesce to Ms. Sais' demands: "So that leaves SECSYS with the remarkable argument that it was discriminated against in violation of the federal Constitution not because it was unwilling to pay, but because it was willing to pay only some of an allegedly extortionate demand." Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found no evidence that Defendants enforced Ms. Sais' demands with the purpose of discriminating against those who failed to meet them: "every indication in the record before [the Court] suggest[ed] the defendants would have been just as happy if SECSYS had met its full demand as it was when another bidder eventually did so." The Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendants. View "SECSYS, LLC v. Vigil" on Justia Law

In 1983, Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 10101–10270, to provide for government collection and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The NWPA authorized the Department of Energy to contract for disposal. In return for payment of fees into the Nuclear Waste Fund, the Standard Contract provided that the DOE would begin to dispose of SNF and HLW not later than January 31, 1998. Because collection and disposal did not begin, courts held that the DOE had breached the Standard Contract with the nuclear energy industry. The trial court found breach of plaintiff's contract, but granted summary judgment in favor of the government regarding the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and set damages for the breach at $10,014,114 plus the cost of borrowed funds for financing construction of a dry fuel storage project. On reconsideration, the trial court reduced damages to $9,735,634 and denied the cost of borrowed funds. The Federal Circuit affirmed with respect to borrowed fund, but and reversed denial of overhead costs. View "System Fuels, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Two laws were challenged under the Buy American Act, 41 U.S.C. 8301, which requires that only materials mined, produced, or manufactured in the U.S. be employed for "public use" or used in construction, alteration, or repair of "any public building or public work. A 1985 Puerto Rican law required that local construction projects financed with federal or Commonwealth funds use only construction materials manufactured in Puerto Rico, with limited exceptions relating to price, quality, and available quantity, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3, 927-927h (Law 109). Cement is deemed "manufactured in Puerto Rico" only if composed entirely of raw materials from Puerto Rico. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 10, 167e (Law 132), enacted in 2001, imposes labeling requirements on cement and required that foreign-manufactured cement carry a special label warning against its use in government-financed construction projects unless one of the exceptions contained in the BAA and Law 109 applies. The district court held that the local laws were preempted. The First Circuit upheld Law 109 as a permissible action taken by Puerto Rico as a market participant, but invalidated provisions of Law 132 that discriminate against sellers of foreign cement, leaving the remainder of the law intact. View "Antilles Cement Corp. v. Fortuno" on Justia Law

This case concerned a contract between the parties where defendant was hired to dredge a portion of the Houston Ship Channel and to construct containment levees and other structures at a disposal facility for dredge material. Defendant subsequently appealed the district court's denial of its motion for partial dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and motion for partial summary judgment. Defendant also appealed the district court's grant of the government's motion for judgment on the pleadings. The court held that the government's suit to collect the money owed by defendant was timely because it was filed within six years of the contracting officer's decision; because defendant had failed to show its set-off claim "beyond peradventure," the court affirmed the district court's denial of its motion for partial summary judgment on this claim; and the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over the government's claim for repayment it had overpaid defendant and the district court properly granted judgment in the government's favor on that claim. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "United States v. Renda Marine, Incorporated" on Justia Law