Government Contracts

[09/01] US ex rel. SNAPP v. Ford Motor Co.
District court's denial of plaintiff's motion to file a second amended complaint concluding that the proposed amended complaint, which included a list of contracts that the government allegedly entered into as a result of fraudulent representations on the part of Ford, did not allege with sufficient particularity the existence of a "claim" as defined by the False Claims Act (FCA), is affirmed as, because no holding of Bledsoe II affected the circuit's law on the questions at issue before the district court, the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that its original rationale for not permitting plaintiff to file its second amended complaint pursuant to Rule 59(e) still obtained and that permitting such a filing was not otherwise "required in order to prevent an injustice."

[08/31] Great W. Contractors, Inc. v. Irvine Unified Sch. Dist.
In plaintiff-contractor's suit against a school district (District), challenging the District's rejection of plaintiff's bid to remodel two elementary schools, trial court's judgment in favor of the District is reversed where: 1) trial court was incorrect in rejecting plaintiff's lowest bid as nonresponsive as, under D.H. Williams, 146 Cal.App.4th 757 (2007), a public agency cannot reject the bid of the lowest bidder on a public works project on the theory that the bid is nonresponsive to the agency's request for bids when, in substance, the real reason for the rejection is that the agency thinks the lowest bidder is "not responsible" - at least not without giving the lowest bidder the chance for a hearing on whether the lowest bidder really is "not responsible"; and 2) the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting plaintiff's admittedly belated request to amend.

[08/27] Kirby Lake Dev., Ltd. v. Clear Lake City Water Auth.
In developers' suit against a water authority for inverse condemnation, the judgment of the court of appeals in favor of the water authority is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the authority's refusal to include a reimbursement measure in every bond election constituted a breach of its contracts with the developers; 2) because the Legislature has waived the authority's immunity from suit for this breach, the court of appeals' judgment is reversed and remanded to consider authority's remaining issues; and 3) court of appeals' judgment that the authority's actions did not rise to the level of a taking is affirmed.

[08/24] Schram Constr., Inc. v. Regents of the Univ. of California
Trial court's denial of plaintiff's petition for a writ of mandate challenging a decision by a general contractor and University Regents, awarding a contract to another subcontractor is reversed where: 1) the contract with the subcontractor must be set aside, as the University's violations of the competitive bidding statutes were not merely "technical or nonsubstantive," and they undermined the goal of stimulating competition in a manner conducive to sound fiscal practices and compromised the integrity of the selection process by failing to ensure procedural and substantive fairness; and 2) University did not violate section 1056.7 in awarding a contract on one of the alternative combination packages to the subcontractor.

[08/23] US v. Hawley
In a civil action by the U.S. against an insurance agent, and his insurance company, alleging that defendants violated the False Claims Act by committing fraud in connection with federal crop insurance, summary judgment for defendant is reversed where: 1) the government adequately preserved its argument that the insurer's reimbursement demands were the "claims" presented to the government; and 2) the evidence created a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether defendant caused his company to present claims for reimbursement to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.

[08/20] Hardy Wilson Mem. Hosp. v. Sebelius
In an action against the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), alleging that CMS's method for calculating reimbursement payments for costs incurred by health care providers' psychiatric units between 2003 and 2005 violated 42 U.S.C. section 1395ww(b)(3)(A) and was inconsistent with the agency’s own regulations, summary judgment for defendants is reversed where the plain text of subsection (c)(4)(iii) did not support defendant's contention that "the only reasonable interpretation of the regulations is that all of subsection (c)(4)(iii) expired in 2003 because the statutory authority under which it was promulgated (the BBA) expired at that time."

[08/20] Florida Med. Ctr. of Clearwater, Inc. v. Sebelius

[08/17] Harris v. Kellogg Brown & Root Serv., Inc.
In plaintiffs' wrongful death and survival action against a government contractor for the death of their son, an active duty Army Ranger and Green Beret serving in Iraq, claiming that the defendant's negligence in electrical maintenance of the building where the son was electrocuted caused the death, defendant's appeal of the district court's rejection of its political question and section 2680(j) defenses is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction as the district court's March 31 order did not conclusively determine the disputed issues in this case, and as such, it cannot be reviewed under the collateral order doctrine.

[08/16] Tr. of the S. California IBEW-NECA Pension Plan v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist.
In a suit against the Los Angeles Unified School District and a construction contractor working for the school district, alleging that the contractor violated the terms of the Project Stabilization Agreement (PSA) by failing to pay the Trustees of the Southern California IBEW-NECA Pension Plan (Trustees) approximately $20,000 in employee fringe benefits, trial court's ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in the district's request for judicial declaration that Labor Code section 1776(e) prohibited it from producing personal employee information contained in third-party certified payroll records is affirmed as, contrary to the district's contention that it has an absolute privilege to withhold the information at issue, personal employee information contained within an awarding agency's copies of certified payroll records is subject to a conditional privilege.

[08/11] Paul Davis Nat'l v. City of New Orleans
In an action claiming that defendant-city failed to comply with the mandatory provisions of Louisiana's Public Works Act by not requiring a third party to post a payment bond, thus making the city solidarily liable on plaintiff's claim for the cost of the work in a park, partial summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed for the reasons stated by the district court.

[08/10] S&M Brands Inc. v. Caldwell
In an action claiming that the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached in the 1990s between the four largest tobacco manufacturers and the several states and the Louisiana Escrow Statute violated the Compact Clause, First Amendment, Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA), Commerce and Due Process Clauses, and federal antitrust laws, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) the MSA may result in an increase in bargaining power of the States vis-a-vis the tobacco manufacturers, but this increase in power does not interfere with federal supremacy; 2) the MSA and Escrow Statute working together did not create an antitrust violation; and 3) while the MSA did restrict the speech activities of participating manufacturers (PMs), the plaintiffs were not PMs and were not coerced to become PMs.

[08/05] PAI Corp. v. US
In plaintiff's bid protest case challenging the government's award of a support services contract to Innovative Technology Partnerships, LLC (ITP) by the Department of Energy's Office of Secure Transportation, claiming that the contracting officer's organizational conflict of interest created an advantage to ITP over other bidders, trial court's entry of judgment in favor of the government is affirmed where: 1) the contracting officer fully complied with the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) requirements; and 2) plaintiff failed to establish that there was any significant potential conflict that provided ITP with an unfair competitive advantage during the procurement.

[08/02] Coral Constr. Inc. v. City & County of San Francisco
In an action against the City and County of San Francisco brought by construction companies, challenging the 2003 version of an ordinance that preferentially awards public contracts to minority-owned business enterprises (MBE's) and women-owned business enterprises (WBE's) as unconstitutional, the judgment of the court of appeal is affirmed where: 1) the political structure doctrine does not invalidate section 31 of Article I of the California Constitution (forbidding a city awarding public contracts to discriminate or grant preferential treatment based on race or gender), which was approved by voters via Proposition 209; 2) there is no merit in the argument that the federal funding exception exempts the 2003 ordinance from section 31's general prohibition of racial preferences, and as such, no triable issue of fact exists on this point to preclude summary judgment for plaintiffs; and 3) the court of appeal was correct in reversing superior court's grant of summary judgment for plaintiffs on the city's Federal Compulsion argument that the federal equal protection clause requires the 2003 ordinance as a remedy for the city's own discrimination, and in remanding for the limited purpose of adjudicating this issue.

[07/30] US v. Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc.
In a qui tam action against two companies that contracted to perform work for Iowa's Medicaid program, and against two employees of the Iowa Department of Health Services, claiming that the defendants violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by obtaining federal funds to pay for medical care resulting from medical negligence without seeking reimbursement from the tortfeasors as federal law required, dismissal of the action is affirmed where: 1) the documents submitted by plaintiffs did not disclose the "essential elements" of what the relators sought to prove; and 2) there was no merit in the relators' contention that the defendants were somehow bound by an interpretation of Iowa Code section 147.136 that the State of Iowa relied on in that trial-court case against a Medicaid recipient's estate.

[07/30] Menominee Indian Tribe v. US
In a breach-of-contract action by a government contractor, the district court's dismissal of the action is reversed where: 1) the limitations period in 41 U.S.C. section 605(a) was subject to equitable tolling in appropriate cases; and 2) the district court incorrectly calculated the length of the tribe's delay in filing suit.

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