Lawrance Aeronautical Corp. v. United States

115 F. Supp. 903, 127 Ct. Cl. 714, 1953 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 53, 1953 WL 6123
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedNovember 3, 1953
DocketNo. 48942
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 115 F. Supp. 903 (Lawrance Aeronautical Corp. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lawrance Aeronautical Corp. v. United States, 115 F. Supp. 903, 127 Ct. Cl. 714, 1953 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 53, 1953 WL 6123 (cc 1953).

Opinion

ON DEPENDANT’S MOTION POR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Jones, Ohief Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff sues under the War Contract Hardship Claims Act,1 also known as the Lucas Act, for an equitable deter[715]*715mination. praying for relief from alleged losses suffered in tbe performance of certain contracts (hereinafter described) entered into with various Government departments and agencies authorized to enter into contracts under section 201 of the First War Powers Act of 1941.2 Such losses are alleged to have been incurred without plaintiff’s fault or negligence between September 16, 1940, and August 14, 1945. In its petition plaintiff also seeks relief with respect to three specific contracts under the general jurisdiction of this court as set forth in 28 U. S. C. 1491 and under the provisions of the Contract Settlement Act of 1944, 58 Stat. 649, 41 U. S. C. sections 101-125.3

Defendant has filed a motion for summary judgment directed only to those portions of the petition praying for relief under the Lucas Act, on the ground that there is no genuine issue as to a necessary jurisdictional fact in that plaintiff did not file prior to August 14, 1945, with a department or agency of defendant, a sufficient written request for the type of relief contemplated by the Lucas Act.

Plaintiff has incorporated in its petition a list of those contracts on which it allegedly incurred losses and concerning which losses plaintiff alleges it had on file with the department or agency concerned requests for relief within the meaning of the Lucas Act. Paragraph 8 of its petition alleges that:

* * * the losses sustained on said contracts and subcontracts by this corporation were caused by the large amount of research, experimental and preliminary work required to develop the products required by the departments and agencies of the Government under the said contracts, the numerous changes requested by the departments and agencies, and the improvement and perfection of the products to meet changed conditions and requirements, all' of which were at the instance and request of the contracting departments and agencies of the Government, * * *

Plaintiff also alleged (paragraph 6 of petition) that copies of each written request for relief on which plaintiff now relies are contained in its Lucas Act claim filed on Febru[716]*716ary 7,1947, with, the Navy Department, along with all other information in its possession relative to its war contracts and subcontracts as required by the Lucas Act. Plaintiff did not incorporate in its petition by reference or otherwise the Lucas Act claim filed with the Navy Department, but defendant did submit such claim with its motion for summary judgment. In its brief, plaintiff incorporated by reference defendant’s Exhibits 1 and 2 which contained plaintiff’s claim before the Navy Department, and also defendant’s Exhibit 3 which is a copy of Public Voucher DOV No. 4604, April 27, 1944, on contract NOa(s)-551.

It is defendant’s position that the requests for relief relied on by plaintiff and contained in its claim to the Navy Department (defendant’s Exhibits 1 and 2), were claims for contractual relief understood and treated as such by both parties, and were in no sense sufficient to put the contracting agencies on notice that they were being requested to grant plaintiff extra-legal relief such as was possible only under the First War Powers Act. Fogarty v. United States, 340 U. S. 8.

Plaintiff’s own characterization of its losses as set forth in paragraph 8 of its petition, quoted above, indicates that the claims based on them were contractual in nature rather than extra-legal. Am examination of the requests themselves bears out this impression.

The contracts listed on plaintiff’s Exhibit A to its petition and included in Group I, were three experimental contracts calling for the manufacture and delivery of a number of 5-cylinder auxiliary power plants between 1941 and 1944. Plaintiff was paid the total price stipulated in the contracts ($101,700), but the actual costs of performing the contracts exceeded such price by $267,666.02. Included in Group II (Exhibit A) were three subcontracts awarded to plaintiff by Electric Boat Company and covering the procurement of a number of 2-cylinder auxiliary power plants and spare parts for installation in Navy PT boats for the United States Navy. Plaintiff’s costs in excess of the contract prices paid plaintiff are alleged to have amounted to $68,933.53 plus certain inventory costs of $46,436.35.

[717]*717Beginning in 1941, plaintiff was awarded three production contracts covering, among other things, the procurement of the 5-cylinder engines developed under the Group I experimental contracts, and in 1943 the three production contracts were consolidated into a cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contract (NOa(s)-551). Plaintiff also secured cost-plus contracts to produce in numbers the 2-cylinder engines developed under the Group II experimental contracts, with both the Navy (NOa(s)-551) and the Army (W535-ac-27329.) Plaintiff also had certain fixed-price production contracts for the procurement of these engines.

In connection with plaintiff’s fixed-price production contracts, plaintiff filed “claims” with defendant which, in effect, amounted to attempts to secure defendant’s approval of plaintiff’s plan to liquidate portions of its previous development costs by adding to the fixed price a sum representing the amortization of the previous development costs of the product covered by the contracts. With respect to the cost-plus production contracts, plaintiff asked the contracting agencies to treat such development costs as reimbursable items of cost under the terms of the contracts and of T. D. 5000, incorporated therein by reference.

Plaintiff relies particularly upon its letter of April 9,1943 to Captain William H. Gardner, the contracting officer on contract No. W535-ac-27329, a cost-plus contract for the production of the experimental engines. The following ex-, cerpts from this letter are significant:

This letter is submitted in connection with Contractor’s claim for reimbursement on that portion of his capitalized Auxiliary Power Plant Development, charged to Contract No. W535-ac-27329, in accordance with Appendix “A” attached.
v ‡
In this letter, the Contractor will brief his method of setting up and amortizing his Auxiliary Power Plant Development expense, with specific reference to certain points, which have been raised by the Army Air Force Audit.
On the basis of production contracts, booked and anticipated, Lawrance Engineering and Besearch Corporation determined during April 1941 that March 1, 1941, [718]*718represented tbe date when its basic experimental and development program was completed, and that in the future, it would be considered as a production operation.

Included in this decision were the following:

1.

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Related

Lawrance Aeronautical Corp. v. United States
130 F. Supp. 603 (Court of Claims, 1955)
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119 F. Supp. 186 (Court of Claims, 1954)

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Bluebook (online)
115 F. Supp. 903, 127 Ct. Cl. 714, 1953 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 53, 1953 WL 6123, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lawrance-aeronautical-corp-v-united-states-cc-1953.