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Do Not Disturb! |
| Reference: DAR 1-201.3 (1980) |
'Contracting Officer' means any person who, either by virtue of his position or by appointment in accordance with procedures prescribed by this Regulation, is currently a contracting officer with the authority to enter into and administer contracts and make determinations and findings with respect thereto, or with any part of such authority. The term also includes the authorized representative of the contracting officer acting within the limits of his authority. ... |
| Reference: Contract Disputes Act of 1978 |
The contracting officer's decision on the claim shall be final and conclusive and not subject to review by any forum, tribunal or Government agency, unless an appeal or suit is timely commenced as authorized by this Act. |
| Reference: ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS Cibinic and Nash, George Washington University |
"Payment and Discharge. Final payment is made upon
completion and acceptance of all work required under a contract by
presentation of a properly executed and duly certified voucher or
invoice presented to the disbursing officer showing the amount
agreed upon, less any amounts previously paid. The discharge process, the purpose and effect of which is the elimination of all or part of continuing and future obligations and rights under the contract, is accomplished in two basic ways; through performance by the parties under the terms of the contract or by modification of the contract itself."* |
| Reference: Grant v. United States 74 U.S. 331 (1868) |
"It is too plain for controversy, that the property did not vest in the United States until it was delivered. To escape the force of this rule at law, it is insisted, as the goods were inspected in New York and pronounced to be of the proper kind and quality, that the title then passed to the United States, and that they only remained in possession of the claimant for transportation, and as he was prevented from delivering them by the public enemy, the loss must be borne by the United States. This position cannot be sustained, for the inspection at New York, on which it is based, did not work a change of title in the property, nor was it in the contemplation of the parties that it should. It did not affect the contract at all. The goods, by a well-known usage of the War Department, had to be inspected somewhere, and as the contract contained nothing on the subject, it was for the advantage of the contractor that they should be inspected before shipment, rather than at the point of delivery." |
| Reference: United States v. Gleason 175 U.S. 588 (1899) |
"In other words, the plaintiffs allege that they were prevented from completing their work by force and violence of the elements, and not by any fault of their own, and that the judgment of the engineer in refusing an extension was therefore wrongful and unjust. But as they had agreed, in the contract as we have construed it, that the engineer was to decide whether the failure to complete was due to the force of the elements or to their fault, their allegation now is that the determination of the engineer was wrongful and unjust, because he decided the submitted issue against them. Of course, such an allegation was wholly insufficient on which to base an attempt to upset the judgment of the engineer." |
| Reference: United States v. Wegematic Corporation 360 F.2d 674 (2d Cir) (1966) |
"Beyond this the evidence of true impracticability was far from compelling. The large sums predicted by defendant's witnesses must be appraised in relation not to the single computer ordered by the Federal Reserve Board, evidently for a bargain price but to the entire ALWAC 800 program as originally contemplated. ... While the unanticipated need for expending $1,000,000 or $1,500,000 on redesign might have made such a venture unattractive, as defendant's management evidently decided, the sums are thus not so clearly prohibitive as it would have them appear ..." |
| Reference: Dynalectron Corp. v. United States 207 Ct. Cl. 349, 518 F.2d 594 (1975) |
"The plaintiff here thought it was contracting to deliver the
previously accepted Tamar/Stoddart design of antenna. By the time
it discovered its error, it was in a situation of performing an R
and D contract under ostensible fixed-price production contract
terms. This situation defendant exploited to put plaintiff more
and more in the hole, and finally, by a wrongful default termination,
defendant sought to throw the entire costs of the numerous errors of
both sides on the plaintiff." "Here, since the convenience termination formula is ruled out, except as a ceiling, we think the formula of shared costs as in a joint venture is likewise applicable. The Government benefited from plaintiff's flounderings at least to this extent: it tried out a number of false leads and learned what would not work at plaintiff's cost." |
| Reference: Horowitz v. United States 267 U.S. 458 (1925) |
"The two characters which the government possesses as a contractor and as a sovereign cannot be thus fused; nor can the United States while sued in the one character be made liable in damages for their acts done in the other. Whatever acts the government may do, be they legislative or executive, so long as they be public and general, cannot be deemed specially to alter, modify, obstruct or violate the particular contracts into which it enters with private persons. In this court the United States appear simply as contractors; and they are to be held liable only within the same limits that any other defendant would be in any other court." |
| Reference: Larson v. United States 337 U.S. 682 (1949) |
"The Congress has increasingly permitted such suits to be maintained against the sovereign and we should give hospitable scope to that trend. But the reasoning is not applicable to suits for specific relief. For, it is one thing to provide a method by which a citizen may be compensated for a wrong done to him by the Government. It is a far different matter to permit a court to exercise its compulsive powers to restrain the Government from acting, or to compel it to act. There are the strongest reasons of public policy for the rule that such relief cannot be had against the sovereign." |
| Reference: Floyd Acceptances 74 U.S. 666 (1868) |
"That the powers of a public agent are to be determined by law, and those powers are limited by the law to the performance of specific duties imposed upon such agents; and his powers are to be construed with reference to the design and object of them. That the powers of such an agent being conferred and limited by law, all persons dealing upon his authority, are chargeable with notice of the extent of his powers." |
| Reference: United States v. Russell 80 U.S. 623 (1871) |
"On the contrary, the court is of the opinion that the findings of the Court of Claims show that the employment and use of the steamboats were such as raise an implied promise on the part of the United States to reimburse the owner for the services rendered and the expenses incurred, as allowed by the Court of Claims." |
| Reference: United States v. Lee 107 U.S. 196 (1882) |
"No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives." |
| Reference: Carnegie Steel v. United States 24 U.S. 156 (1916) |
"A successful process was therefore foreseeable and discoverable. And it would seem to have been an obvious prudence to have preceded manufacture, if not engagement, by experiment rather than risk failure and delay and their consequent penalties by extending an old formula to a new condition." |
| Reference: Nelson Construction Co. v. United States 87 Ct. Cl. 375 (1938) |
The contractor was paid in accord with the contract for every item of work actually performed, and the only deduction from its pay, so far as paving is concerned, was the reasonable cost to the defendant of laying the 1,690 square yards of pavement which was obviously an expense incurred by the defendant. The contractor may not recover for work not performed. |
* From Cibinic and Nash, "Administration", Copyright 1981, George Washington University