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Brian Waagner

Brian is the leader of the Government Contracts practice group at Husch Blackwell LLP. Brian represents contractors in federal, state, and local bid protests, contract administration and compliance matters, and in litigation involving complex claims and disputes.

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If you are getting ready to submit a claim on a federal contract—especially one that challenges an assessment of liquidated damages—take note of the Federal Circuit’s decision in K-Con Building Systems, Inc. v. United States, No. 2014-5062 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 12, 2015) [pdf]. It has some specific instructions for the contents of your claim letter and demonstrates the harsh results that follow from a misstep in the disputes process.

K-Con held a Federal Supply Schedule contract for prefabricated structures. In 2004, it won a $582,000 Coast Guard task order for the design and construction of a Coast Guard cutter support building at Port Huron, Michigan.

K-Con’s July 2005 Claim

When K-Con was unable to complete the work by the deadline set forth in the task order, the Coast Guard assessed liquidated damages of $109,554—186 days at $589 per day. On July 28, 2005, K-Con submitted a one-page claim letter seeking remission of the liquidated damages.

Although it was brief, K-Con’s letter asserted three reasons why the liquidated damages assessment was improper:

  1. K-Con “was not the sole cause of any alleged delays” and any K-Con delays were “concurrent with delays caused by the government;”
  2. the government “failed to issue extension to the completion date as a result of changes to the contract by the government;” and
  3. the liquidated damages “are an impermissible penalty.”

K-Con’s letter requested a contracting officer’s final decision. Though it demanded relief of more than $100,000, K-Con’s letter asserted that a certification was not required “since the assessment of liquidated damages is a claim by the Government.”

Now for some good news in government contracts law. On February 11, 2014, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit reversed the Court of Federal Claims decisions in Metcalf Constr. Co. v. United States, 102 Fed. Cl. 334 (2011) (Metcalf I) and Metcalf Constr. Co. v. United States, 107 Fed. Cl. 786 (2012) (Metcalf II). The case has been remanded for further proceedings and application of the correct legal standards. A copy of the Federal Circuit’s decision is available here.

No requirement for proof of specific targeting

The main issue on appeal in Metcalf was the legal standard applicable to contractor claims that the government breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing. The Court of Federal Claims concluded that the decision in Precision Pine & Timber, Inc. v. United States, 596 F.3d 817, 829 (Fed. Cir. 2010) requires proof of specific targeting—that Government actions were “specifically designed to reappropriate the benefits” of a contract. Incompetence and failure to cooperate are not enough.

The Federal Circuit rejects this analysis. “The trial court misread Precision Pine, which does not impose a specific-targeting requirement applicable across the board or in this case.”

The Federal Circuit’s opinion in Metcalf also rejects the Government’s attempt to limit the scope of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. Citing Precision Pine, the Government argued that the duty of good faith and fair dealing “cannot expand a party’s contractual duties beyond those in the express contract or create duties inconsistent with the contract’s provisions.” In its appellate brief, the Government urged a broad application of that language that would almost always preclude a good faith and fair dealing claim. Citing its interpretation, the Government argued that Metcalf’s claim must fail because it could not “identify a contract provision that the Navy’s inspection process violated.”

That argument went nowhere with the Federal Circuit. According to the court’s decision, the Government’s interpretation “goes too far:  a breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing does not require a violation of an express provision of the contract.”

You’ve heard by now that the Supreme Court’s decision in Atlantic Marine Constr. Co. v. United States District Court, No. 12-929 (U.S. Dec. 3, 2013) is a strong endorsement of a contractor’s right to choose the forum that will resolve disputes with subcontractors. We discuss the Court’s decision in an earlier post.

So you know that you can have a forum selection clause. But Atlantic Marine doesn’t answer the hard question, which is this—

How do you write a forum selection clause that will be reliably and economically enforced—without an expensive trip through the court system, perhaps even all the way to the Supreme Court?

Here are some basic points on drafting a forum selection clause, drawn from some of the dozens of reported court cases addressing them—

The Contract Disputes Act gives prime contractors a straightforward procedure for resolving claims against the federal government. But there is no mandatory approach to resolving disputes between contractors and subcontractors. Private parties may agree to arbitrate their disputes or designate a specific court to hear them. They may identify the applicable law, provide for the recovery of attorney’s fees, and prescribe any number of other details.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Atlantic Marine Constr. Co. v. United States District Court for Western District of Texas, No. 12-929 (U.S. Dec. 3, 2013), holds that forum selection clauses in subcontracts on federal projects are enforceable. In this first blog post of a two-part series, we discuss the decision in Atlantic Marine and the limits of the Supreme Court’s analysis. In the subsequent one, we will discuss the use of subcontract dispute resolution clauses more broadly.

Let’s put the politics of the 2013 government shutdown aside and look at the practical questions. Like the government employees that are affected, contractors want to know if they should come to work. And if they do come to work, will they get paid? Will the options be exercised? Will their contract be terminated for…

The government often blames construction contractors for shortcomings in its own design and unanticipated difficulties encountered at the site. “You’re supposed to be the expert!”  “You should have known what to expect because of the magic language on page 97 of the geotechnical report.” “You’re the design-builder!”

At first glance, these arguments seem persuasive. But when they are presented to a judge at the Court of Federal Claims or a Board of Contract Appeals, their limitations become apparent. Contractors are not ordinarily expected to have the expertise of a designer or geotechnical engineer. And even when contractors have design-build responsibilities, they are entitled to rely on the design components that the government has furnished to them. And that single reference on page 97 of the geotechnical report?  It doesn’t override the interpretation that a reasonable contractor may draw from the boring logs and the geotechnical report as a whole.

There is no doubt that contractors have the power to challenge an erroneous assessment of their performance on a government contract. FAR 42.1503 requires the government to issue past performance reviews in draft. Contractors are entitled to rebut any inaccuracies in the draft. Even if the government declines to make a requested change, contractors are entitled to have their comments included in the final report. Under the FAR disputes clause, contractors may submit a claim challenging a faulty past performance assessment. Denial of such a claim can be appealed to a Board of Contract Appeals or the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Of course getting a court decision reversing a poor past performance assessment presents a number of hurdles. One such hurdle is the requirement that a contractor submit a “claim” and that the contracting officer issue a final decision denying it. Without a claim and a final decision or sufficient passage of time to establish a “deemed denial,” there would be no jurisdiction allowing a Board or the Court to consider a contractor challenge to a poor past performance assessment.

But what happens when a negative past performance assessment is linked to unresolved disputes over delays, change orders, or government backcharges? Wouldn’t a resolution in the contractor’s favor necessarily require a reassessment of the contractor’s performance? As a matter of common sense, yes. Unfortunately common sense doesn’t create Contract Disputes Act jurisdiction. The recent decision in Extreme Coatings, Inc. v. United States, No. 11-895C (Fed. Cl. Oct. 3, 2012), concludes that a claim involving affirmative contractor claims or government counterclaims does not meet the jurisdictional requirement for a claim challenging past performance.

The Prompt Payment Act requires agencies to pay interest on late payments. If the interest isn’t paid when due, the contractor is entitled to collect an additional interest penalty. A June 26, 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office looks at how much the Prompt Payment Act costs the Department of Defense.

According to GAO’s estimate, DOD paid late payment penalties totaling about $21 million in 2011. This number is comprised of $19 million in late-payment penalties reported on transactions processed by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. GAO estimates that DOD paid about $2 million in late payment penalties on transactions processed outside of DFAS, which includes transactions handled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and TRICARE. GAO estimates that DOD lost another $9 million by foregoing prompt payment discounts.

Contractors sued for False Claims Act violations face a potential judgment assessing stiff civil penalties and treble damages. Even assuming that the government can meet its burden of proving a violation of the False Claims Act, defenses to the damages elements of the case should not be ignored. Grossly disproportionate penalties One important limit on the assessment of civil penalties appears in the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the assessment of excessive fines. To prevail on an 8th Amendment defense, a contractor must show that the fine would be grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense. Four factors are relevant here:

  1. the extent of the harm caused;
  2. the gravity of the offense relative to the fine;
  3. whether the violation was related to other illegal activity, and the nature and extent of that activity; and
  4. the availability of other penalties and the maximum penalties which could have been imposed.

In one recent case, the court accepted an 8th Amendment argument that wiped out a $50 million civil penalty against a contractor found guilty of bid rigging. See United States ex rel. Bunk v. Birkart Globistics GMBH & Co., No. 1:02cv1168, 1:07cv1198 (E.D. Va. Feb. 14, 2012). The contract involved moving services for military personnel stationed in Europe. The contractor submitted a bid with 51 line item prices. The court found a violation of the False Claims Act because one of the line item prices was affected by a subcontractor bid-rigging scheme. The government sought to assess a $5,500 penalty for each of the contractor’s 9,136 invoices, yielding a penalty of $50,248,000. Despite the False Claims Act violation, the court refused to assess the penalty because it was grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense. The entire contract price was only $3.3 million and the contractor’s profit was only $150,000. There was no evidence of economic harm to the government because the contractor’s services were acceptable and the prices were lower than any competitor’s prices.

The Contractor’s Perspective is up to three entries on the application of FAR 52.204-10, which requires some federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors to report the compensation of their top-five highest paid executives. Even though it has been almost two years since the requirement first appeared in the FAR, the topic still generates a lot of interest and a lot of questions. Here are answers to some of the questions we received in the executive compensation reporting segment of our recent webinar on Transparency in Government Contracting. We hope you find them useful.

Question: Does FAR 52.204-10 apply only to new contracts or does it also apply retroactively to existing contracts?

Answer: Even though the statutory requirement for reporting executive compensation became law in April 2008 when President Bush signed the Government Funding Transparency Act of 2008, the contractual requirement didn’t go into effect until July 8, 2010, when the FAR Councils published FAR 52.204-10 as an “interim rule.” According to the text of the interim rule, FAR 52.204-10 is required in all contracts over $25,000 that are awarded after July 8, 2010. It does not apply to contracts awarded before on or before July 8, 2010.