This case concerns a breach-of-contract dispute between six hospitals and the Department of Defense/TRICARE over a 2011 discretionary payment process (DPP) designed to adjust underpayments for outpatient radiology services rendered from 2003 to 2009, after a study showed TRICARE had reimbursed hospitals less than Medicare would have. The hospitals alleged the government failed to properly extract, analyze, and adjust line-item claims data from its database as required under the contract formed by the DPP notice, letters, FAQs, and releases. Following a Federal Circuit remand and years of litigation, the Court of Federal Claims addressed the sole surviving claim via cross-motions for summary judgment. The court granted in part and denied in part both the government’s motion and the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment, based on its interpretation of the parties’ respective duties under the contract terms.
The case involved a contract dispute between Big Easy Studios and NASA over the use of the Michoud Assembly Facility for filming movies. The parties entered three short-term Space Act Agreements, but the plaintiff claimed it also had a long-term lease based on a contracting officer’s assurances and its own investments in the facility; after NASA terminated the short-term agreements, the plaintiff sued for breach of express and implied contracts, quantum meruit, and equitable estoppel. The Court of Federal Claims granted the government’s motion for partial summary judgment, dismissing those claims while leaving one implied-duty claim for further proceedings. The court reasoned that the contracting officer lacked authority to bind NASA to any long-term lease, so no such contract (express or implied) existed, and contractors are charged with verifying a government agent’s actual authority regardless of any misrepresentations. Equitable remedies were unavailable because the government cannot be estopped from denying unauthorized actions.
business & regulatoryfederal powerpropertyprocedure
Margaret Abare, a U.S. Postal Service mail handler, filed an EEOC disability-discrimination grievance and later claimed that email exchanges with a Postal Service attorney created an enforceable $180,000 settlement agreement. The attorney had offered that amount “inclusive of compensation and attorney’s fees,” and Abare accepted, but the attorney lacked actual authority to settle for more than $5,000 and had not obtained the required approval. The Court of Federal Claims granted the government’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. It held that no binding contract existed because government agents must act within their actual authority, contractors bear the risk of ascertaining that authority, and the email exchanges omitted material terms such as the type of retirement benefits. The court relied on longstanding Supreme Court and Federal Circuit precedent requiring parties dealing with the government to “turn square corners” and verify an agent’s authority.
Miranda Chu filed a petition under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program seeking compensation for a shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) after receiving a vaccine, claiming she met the requirements of the Vaccine Injury Table. The Chief Special Master denied entitlement after four years of proceedings, concluding that Chu had not satisfied two of the Table’s qualifying criteria (QAI 3 and 4). The Court of Federal Claims granted Chu’s motion for review, vacated the denial, and remanded the case for a new decision within 90 days. The court held that the Special Master’s ruling was arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with law because it improperly converted the Table’s checklist-style criteria into a full causation-in-fact analysis and disregarded contemporaneous medical records and specialist diagnoses without expert support. The opinion emphasized that the Vaccine Program is intended to provide a streamlined, pro-claimant process with a presumption of causation once Table requirements are met.
Vinsys IT Hub LLC, an SBA 8(a) small business providing IT services, sued in the Court of Federal Claims after the National Library of Medicine issued a new five-year solicitation for software development and maintenance work as a general small-business set-aside rather than under the 8(a) program that had covered the prior 2019–2024 contract. Vinsys argued that the agency could not remove the requirement from the 8(a) program without first obtaining the SBA’s concurrence, while the government maintained that the solicitation was a new contract for which only written notice to the SBA was required. The court denied Vinsys’s motion for judgment on the administrative record and granted the government’s cross-motion, holding that NLM had complied with the applicable regulation by furnishing the SBA a sixteen-page memorandum justifying its new-requirement determination and by providing the required written notice. Because the agency’s actions were not arbitrary or capricious, the court ruled that Vinsys had not succeeded on the merits and was therefore not entitled to injunctive relief.
In Brasfield & Gorrie, LLC v. United States, a construction contractor challenged a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers solicitation amendment that required a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) under Executive Order 14063 for a large-scale federal project, arguing it violated the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) by restricting full and open competition. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims granted the protest in part, enjoining the PLA requirement for this specific solicitation (WSLP-114), ordering the agency to justify any exception under FAR 22.504(d), remove the mandate, and allow revised bids, while denying broader relief to invalidate the Executive Order itself. The court reasoned that the PLA mandate improperly excluded responsible offerors and disregarded market research, consistent with its prior rulings in related cases, but it lacked jurisdiction under the Tucker Act to issue a facial injunction against the EO across all procurements, limiting its review to the as-applied challenge in this instance.
business & regulatorylabor & employmentfederal powerprocedure