Justia Government Contracts Opinion Summaries

Rohrer Towers is a housing facility for low-income elderly residents in Haddon Township, Camden County, New Jersey. Haddon leased Rohrer Towers to Housing Authority of the Township of Haddon, which entered into a housing assistance payments contract (HAP) with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Housing Act of 1937, 88 Stat. 633, 662–66. Haddon sued in 2007 alleging that HUD breached the HAP Contract from 2001-2006 by requiring rent “comparability studies” to be submitted along with requests for annual rent adjustments and adopting a one-percent reduction of the annual adjustment factors for units occupied by the same tenants from the previous year. The Claims Court agreed and ordered rent adjustments for all years other than 2002. The government claimed that the complaint should have been dismissed on statute of limitations grounds and appealed the decision that regulatory imposition of a mandatory one-percent rent reduction for non-turnover units was arbitrary, and beyond HUD’s authority. The Federal Circuit reversed the holding that the prevention doctrine applied to the circumstances surrounding Haddon’s 2001 and 2003 rent adjustment, but affirmed the holdings with respect to the contract years 2002 and 2004-2006. View "Haddon Housing Assocs. v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a retaliation action under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729-3733, alleging that defendants, IST and its parent company, EDO, fired plaintiff because he reported IST to the government for what he believed to be fraudulent conduct. IST is a New Hampshire corporation that designs and manufactures counter-improvised explosive devices (C-IEDs) for the government. Plaintiff, hired by IST as an engineer, made complaints regarding what he perceived as the failure of Mobile Multi-Band Jammer systems (MMBJs) devices to function properly at elevated temperatures. The court held that plaintiff's purported investigation activities did not raise a distinct possibility of a viable FCA action and were not protected; the court could not say that IST made a material false certification of compliance with government contracts; and plaintiff's complaint about IST did not raise a distinct possibility of a viable FCA claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Glynn v. EDO Corp." on Justia Law

MES claimed that the Corps unfairly terminated three of its construction/renovation contracts. On appeal, MES and its President contended that the district court erred as a matter of law in ruling that their Bivens action was precluded by the Contract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), 41 U.S.C. 7101 et seq. The court held as a preliminary matter that it lacked jurisdiction to review MES's President's claim because the text and caption of the original timely notice of appeal failed to identify MES's President as a party appealing from the judgment. Accordingly, the court dismissed MES's President's appeal and only address MES's challenge to the judgment of dismissal. The court concluded that, in enacting the CDA, Congress created a comprehensive scheme for securing relief from the United States for any disputes pertaining to federal courts. The existence of that statutory scheme precluded MES from pursuing Bivens claims against federal employees in their individual capacities for alleged violations of due process or the First Amendment in terminating MES's federal construction contracts with the Corps. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "M.E.S., Inc. v. Snell" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729, alleging that defendants fraudulently billed the United States for services provided to the military forces serving in Iraq. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his complaint with prejudice. Because the court concluded that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction and the court found that the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (WSLA), 18 U.S.C. 3287, applied to this action, the court reversed. Because it could be appropriate for the district court to make factual findings to consider the public disclosure claim urged by defendants the court remanded so the district court could consider this issue. View "United States ex rel. Carter v. Halliburton Co." on Justia Law

Relators brought a qui tam action against HP alleging that HP engaged in unlawful kickback and defective pricing schemes in its sale of computer equipment to the federal government. The United States intervened and reached a settlement with HP and the district court awarded relators a share of the kickback settlement and a share of the defective pricing settlement pursuant to the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. 3730(d)(1). The court concluded that the case turned on fact findings the district court made regarding the relationship between relators' action and HP's subsequent disclosure of defective pricing in Contract 35F. The government failed to reveal any clear error in the district court's factual findings regarding that relationship. Moreover, at least with respect to those qui tam actions in which the government elected to intervene, a relator's initial allegations need not satisfy Rule 9(b)'s heightened pleading requirements in order to accomplish the purpose they were meant to serve. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Roberts, et al v. United States" on Justia Law

Casitas Water District operates the Ventura River Project, which is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and provides water to Ventura County, California, using dams, reservoirs, a canal, pump stations, and many miles of pipeline. In 1997, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed the West Coast steelhead trout as an endangered species and determined that the primary cause of its decline was loss of habitat due to water development, including impassable dams. Casitas faced liability if continued operation of the Project resulted in harm to the steelhead, 16 U.S.C. 1538(a)(1), 1540(a)–(b). In 2003, NMFS issued a biological opinion concerning operation of a fish ladder to relieve Casitas of liability. Casitas opened the Robles fish ladder, then filed suit, asserting that the biological opinion operating criteria breached its 1956 Contract with the government or amounted to uncompensated taking of Casitas’s property. The Claims Court dismissed, citing the sovereign acts doctrine. The Federal Circuit affirmed dismissal of the contract claim, but reversed dismissal of Casitas’s takings claim. The court again dismissed, holding that Casitas had failed to show that the operating criteria had thus far resulted in any reduction of water deliveries, so a takings claim was not yet ripe. The Federal Circuit affirmed. View "Casitas Mun. Water Dist. v. United States" on Justia Law

Sharp, a federal supply contractor, submitted a termination compensation claim to the Department of the Army contracting officer, and later brought a Contracts Dispute Act claim before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, claiming that, because the Army failed to exercise the entirety of the last option year under a delivery order, Sharp was entitled to premature discontinuance fees under its General Services Administration schedule contract. The ASBCA dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, concluding that the Federal Acquisition Regulation, does not permit ordering agency contracting officers to decide disputes pertaining to schedule contracts. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Under FAR 8.406-6, only the GSA contracting office may resolve disputes that, in whole or in part, involve interpretation of disputed schedule contract provisions. View "Sharp Elec. Corp. v. McHugh" on Justia Law

This case arose out of a government contract to dredge a portion of the Houston-Galveston navigation channel. At issue was the scope of a corporate officer's personal liability under 31 U.S.C. 3713 (the Priority Statute). The court concluded that the decision of a corporate officer rendered pursuant to the Contract Disputes Act of 1978 (CDA), 41 U.S.C. 7101 et seq., was a "claim" within the meaning of the Priority Statute; a debtor's representative had "notice" of that claim, necessary to trigger personal liability under the Priority Statute, when he had actual knowledge of its existence, whether or not he consulted counsel as to its validity; no genuine issue of material fact remained, and the government was entitled to judgment as a matter of law; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in striking the affirmative defenses and denying the motion for reconsideration. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Renda" on Justia Law

McGuire leased farmland in Arizona from the Colorado River Indian Tribes with approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After the BIA removed a bridge that he used to access portions of the leased property, McGuire filed a Fifth Amendment claim. McGuire does not claim that removal of the bridge was itself a taking, but rather that the BIA’s alleged refusal to authorize replacement of the bridge was a taking of his property rights. The Court of Federal Claims rejected the claim. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the regulatory takings claim never ripened because McGuire failed to pursue administrative remedies. Even if McGuire’s claim had ripened, he had no cognizable property interest in the bridge, which he neither possessed nor controlled because it was in a BIA right-of-way. No federal regulation gave him a property interest and he was not entitled to an easement by necessity. View "McGuire v. United States" on Justia Law

After a 2008 Indiana flood, the President authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide disaster relief under the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. 5121–5207. Columbus Regional Hospital was awarded approximately $70 million, but suit under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346, 1349, claiming that it was entitled to about $20 million more. The district judge granted FEMA summary judgment. In response to the Seventh Circuit’s questioning of subject-matter jurisdiction, the Hospital argued that the Court of Federal Claims was the right forum and requested transfer. FEMA argued that the district court had jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit agreed with FEMA, holding that the suit was not for “money damages.” The Hospital wants money, but not as compensation for FEMA’s failure to perform some other obligation, but as “the very thing to which [it] was entitled” under the disaster-relief program. The court noted that only the district court can serve as a forum for all of the Hospital’s legal theories, then rejected all of those theories. View "Columbus Reg'l Hosp. v. Fed. Emergency Mgmt. Agency" on Justia Law