Justia Government Contracts Opinion Summaries

AHF-Bay Fund, LLC appealed a judgment awarding $695,158.23 in damages and prejudgment interest to the City of Largo for AHF’s failure to make payments pursuant to an agreement for payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT agreement) between the City and AHF’s predecessor in interest. On appeal, the Second District reversed, concluding that the PILOT agreement violated public policy and was therefore void. The Supreme Court quashed the decision of the Second District, holding that PILOT agreements that require payments equaling the ad valorem taxes that would otherwise be due but for a statutory tax exemption do not violate Fla. Stat. 196.1978 or Fla. Const. art. VII, 9(a). View "City of Largo v. AHF-Bay Fund, LLC" on Justia Law

The City of Baltimore contracted with Engineer to design upgrades to a wastewater treatment plant. Contractor successfully bid for work on the construction project. During construction, Contractor encountered leaking and other problems, resulting in delays and cost overruns. Contractor subsequently filed a complaint against Engineer, arguing that Engineer owed it a tort duty of care because Engineer knew that Contractor would rely on its designs in bidding and constructing the project. The circuit court granted Engineer’s motion to dismiss due to lack of privity between Contractor and Engineer. The court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the economic loss doctrine barred Contractor’s negligence and negligent misrepresentation claims; and (2) privity equivalent concepts of extra-contractual duty did not apply in Contractor’s case. View "Balfour Beatty Infrastructure, Inc. v. Rummel Klepper & Kahl, LLP" on Justia Law

The property owners, participants in the “Section 8” federal rental assistance program (42 U.S.C. 1437f(a)), sued the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority for allegedly breaching the contracts that governed payments to the owners under the program, by failing to approve automatic rent increases for certain years, by requiring the owners to submit comparability studies in order to receive increases, and by arbitrarily reducing the increases for non-turnover units by one percent. Because Wisconsin Housing receives all of its Section 8 funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Authority filed a third-party breach of contract claim against HUD. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Wisconsin Housing and dismissed the claims against HUD as moot. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the owners’ Section 8 contracts were renewed after the challenged requirements became part of the program. “The doctrine of disproportionate forfeiture simply does not apply,” and Wisconsin Housing did not breach any contracts by requiring rent comparability studies in certain circumstances or by applying a one percent reduction for non-turnover units. View "Evergreen Square of Cudahy v. Wisconsin Housing & Economic Development Authority" on Justia Law

Relator filed suit against KBR, alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729(a), based on KBR's alleged inflation of "headcount" data from July 2004 to March 2005. The headcount data purported to track how many U.S. troops frequented KBR's recreation centers at certain camps in Iraq. The district court granted summary judgment to KBR. The court took into account the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, and agreed with the district court's conclusion that relator failed to offer evidence that any misrepresentation regarding headcount data (if one existed) was material to the Government's decision to pay KBR. View "United States ex rel. McBride v. Halliburton" on Justia Law

During a three-year period, Defendant outbid Plaintiffs on twenty-three public works contracts to apply a slurry seal coating on various roadways in California. Plaintiffs jointly sued Defendant in five counties for intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. The Riverside complaint - the only tort action at issue in this appeal - alleged that Defendant won six public works contracts on which either plaintiff was the second lowest bidder and that Plaintiffs’ bids would have been accepted but for Defendant’s wrongful conduct during the bidding process. The trial court sustained Defendant’s demurrer to the entire cause of action. The appellate court reversed as to the tortious interference claim, determining that Plaintiffs’ pleading was adequate. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the demurrer was properly sustained because, under the highly regulated circumstances regarding these public works contracts, Plaintiffs’ allegations were insufficient. View "Roy Allan Slurry Seal, Inc. v. American Asphalt South, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a state government attorney for over thirty years, filed a qui tam suit under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729-3733, alleging that the largest telecom companies in the United States were fraudulently overcharging the federal government for surveillance services. The district court dismissed the suit pursuant to the FCA's public disclosure bar. The court concluded that the 2010 Amendments to the FCA, which transformed the public disclosure bar from a jurisdictional bar to an affirmative defense, do not apply to plaintiff's suit brought in 2009 because substantive changes, which impact the substantive rights of parties, are not applied retroactively; plaintiff did not have direct knowledge of fraud sufficient to qualify as an "original source;" and plaintiff's submissions to the FCC were not "voluntarily provided" as required by the statute. Furthermore, the court concluded that the district court properly determined that it did not have discretion to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state law claims without jurisdiction over the federal claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Prather v. AT&T" on Justia Law

Within the Department of Defense, DRMS disposes of surplus military property at Defense Reutilization and Marketing Offices (DRMOs). Property that cannot be reutilized is demilitarized and/or reduced to scrap that can be sold. A 2007 DRMS Request for Proposals sought performance of DRMO activities for up to five years. A referenced website showed DRMS’s historical workload and scrap weight; an amendment indicated that “the contractor may experience significant workload increases or decreases” and outlined a process to “renegotiate the price” if workload increased. DRMS awarded its first contract to Agility to operate six DRMOs for one base year with four option years at a fixed price of $45,233,914.92 per year. Upon commencing work in Arifjan, the largest of the DRMOs, Agility immediately fell behind. It inherited a backlog of approximately 30 weeks. From the start, the volume received at Arifjan was greater than Agility anticipated. The parties terminated their contract for convenience in 2010. Agility thereafter requested funding for its additional costs, claiming DRMS provided inaccurate workload estimates during solicitation. The contracting officer awarded Agility only $236,363.93 for its first claim and nothing for the second, noting that Agility received an offset from its scrap sales. The Federal Circuit reversed, as “clearly erroneous,” the Claims Court’s findings that DRMS did not inadequately or negligently prepare its estimates and that Agility did not rely on those estimates. Agility’s receipt of scrap sales and the parties’ agreement did not preclude recovery. View "Agility Defense & Government Services, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

The Government alleged, in this civil enforcement action, that KBR was liable for kickbacks knowingly accepted by two of its employees. On remand, the district court held KBR liable under Section 8706(a)(1) of the Anti-Kickback Act, 41 U.S.C. 8701-07. The court held that the proper test for imputing knowledge under Section 8706(a)(1) is that corporations are liable only for the knowing violations of those employees whose authority, responsibility, or managerial role within the corporation is such that their knowledge is imputable to the corporation. In this case, the district court did not clearly err by finding that Robert Bennett possessed sufficient authority and responsibility to impute his knowledge to KBR. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in holding KBR liable for kickbacks by Robert, nor in determining that the Government's claims related to the relators' qui tam complaint. However, the district court clearly erred in finding that James Bennett's limited authority was sufficient to impute his knowledge to KBR. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "United States v. Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc." on Justia Law

Appellants filed an amended complaint seeking to invalidate a contract between the City of North Platte, Nebraska and Priority Medical Transport, LLC on the ground that the City provided insufficient notice of its conflict of interest with Priority Medical Transport before awarding the contract. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the complaint contained causes of action under both Neb. Rev. Stat. 84-1411 of the Open Meetings Act and Neb. Rev. Stat. 49-14,102 of the Nebraska Political Accountability and Disclosure Act, and therefore, the district court erred in dismissing the amended complaint. View "Tryon v. City of North Platte" on Justia Law

In 2009, Pfizer, settled claims that it had violated the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729, and entered into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Months later, Booker and Hebron, former Pfizer sales representatives, brought a qui tam action, allegedly on behalf of the United States and several states, asserting that Pfizer had continued to violate the FCA and state analogues. They alleged that Pfizer had continued to knowingly induce third parties to file false claims for payment for Pfizer drugs with government programs like Medicaid by marketing the drug Geodon for off-label uses, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 301, and paying doctors kickbacks for prescribing the drugs Geodon and Pristiq, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b(b), (g). They also alleged that Pfizer had violated the FCA "reverse false claims" provision, 31 U.S.C. 3729(a)(1)(G), by failing to pay the government money owed it under Pfizer's Agreement with HHS, and that Pfizer had violated the FCA's anti-retaliation provision, by terminating Booker's employment. All of these claims were resolved against relators, one on a motion to dismiss and the rest on summary judgment. None of the sovereigns intervened. The First Circuit affirmed the merits decisions and found no error in its management of discovery. The court found relators’ data “woefully inadequate to support their FCA claim.” View "Booker v. Pfizer, Inc." on Justia Law