United Medical Supply Co. v. United States

63 Fed. Cl. 430, 2005 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1, 2005 WL 19240
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedJanuary 3, 2005
DocketNo. 03-289C
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 63 Fed. Cl. 430 (United Medical Supply Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United Medical Supply Co. v. United States, 63 Fed. Cl. 430, 2005 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1, 2005 WL 19240 (uscfc 2005).

Opinion

OPINION

ALLEGRA, Judge.

This government contract action is before the court on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, this court DENIES plaintiffs motion and GRANTS, IN PART, defendant’s motion.

I. BACKGROUND1

On August 11,1993, the Defense Personnel Support Center (“DPSC”) (later renamed the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (“DSCP”)), issued a solicitation to establish a “prime vendor” contract to supply military medical facilities in particular regions with brand name specific and generic medical and surgical supplies. One of these regions, the Lone Star Region of the Southern United States (“Lone Star”), covered all military medical treatment facilities in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. On or about September 14,1993, plaintiff, United Medical Supply Company, Inc. (“United Medical”), submitted an offer in response to this solicitation. It did not receive the contract. Nonetheless, the DPSC, as the result of a General Accounting Office protest, eventually decided to award a new contract. Toward that end, on December 4,1995, it issued Amendment 0008 to the original solicitation, which incorporated a number of changes to the prime vendor program.

Because the language of this amended solicitation eventually was incorporated into the contract at issue, it bears discussion. First, the amended solicitation described the prime vendor program in the following terms:

The Defense Personnel Support Center (DPSC), Directorate of Medical Materiel is establishing a “Prime Vendor” program for brand name specific and generic medical supplies. A “Prime Vendor” is a business concern that functions as a purchaser’s primary source for specified classes of products. A prime vendor is responsible for the delivery of goods produced by various suppliers to the customer upon order.
DPSC Medical is selecting regional prime vendors for brand name specific and generic medical supplies broadly covering medical/surgical and pharmaceutical products. Presently, these items are purchased locally by the military medical facilities. Each prime vendor will be the primary supplier of one of the designated product groupings for member hospitals in a given geographic region. Under this program, the prime vendors chosen by DPSC will furnish the participating ordering facilities with the majority of their normal day-to-day requirements for brand name specific and generic medical supplies.
❖ ❖ * # i'fi *
As part of the program, we are establishing “Distribution and Pricing Agreements” (DAPA’s) with medical/surgical and pharmaceutical product manufacturers. Under a DAP A, the agreement holder consents to allow prime vendors selected by DPSC Medical to distribute its products to participating ordering facilities and agrees that the prime vendor will be charged no more than the prices set forth in the agreement. Orders will not be directly placed against the DAPA’s; they are being used only to establish pricing and to obtain the right for our prime vendors to distribute an agreement holder’s products. The DAPA’s will be used to facilitate “charge-back” arrangements between the agreement holders and DPSC Medical’s prime vendors. It is the responsibility of the Prime Vendor to establish the necessary “charge-back” arrangements with the DAPA holders. DPSC may also issue In[433]*433definite Delivery Type Contracts (IDTC’s) for specific products to be distributed by the Prime Vendor. The Prime Vendor will be required to obtain these specific products from the listed sources. The price charged by the prime to the ordering activities will not exceed that cited in the IDTC plus the offeror’s negotiated distribution fee.

Regarding the DAP As, the amended solicitation further indicated that “[e]ach Prime Vendor will be responsible for supplying all the medical items that are listed on Distribution and Pricing Agreements ... ordered by the participating ordering facilities in the specific region.”2

Like the original solicitation, the amendment contained an estimate of the orders to be placed for the types of products covered by the contract, setting that figure at approximately $57,665,500 per year, but immediately cautioning that “[n]o guarantee is given that this volume will be purchased.” The statement of work listed a number of other requirements that eventually found their way into the contract. For example, it indicated that “[t]he Prime Vendor must have Prime Vendor/DAPA Holder agreements in place, within 90 days of their award date, for a minimum of 95% of the DAPA items under agreement between the DAPA holders and DPSC.” The amended solicitation distinguished between three categories of orders: just-in-time orders that had to be delivered within 24 hours, extended delivery orders that had to be delivered within seven days, and emergency orders that had to be delivered within six to twelve hours depending upon the customer’s location. It required the prime vendor to “[mjaintain, at a minimum, a 95% monthly fill-rate for each ordering facility for Jusb-in-Time Orders and Extended Delivery Orders;” no fill-rate apparently was specified for emergency orders.3

Terms of payment were also specified in the amended solicitation and thereby incorporated into the contract sub judice. Under these provisions, a purchasing facility assigned a unique call number to each order it placed. With each shipment, the prime vendor was required to enclose a packing slip showing this number, the date of the order, a list of the supplies shipped, quantity and price. To allow the call number to be tracked, the prime vendor was required to send all items in a single order in a single shipment. After inspection and acceptance of the shipment, the facility was required to “pay” by electronically obligating funds to the DPSC computer system, which would identify the obligation using the call number. Since this system only accepted one customer obligation per call number, additional obligations for that call number would be rejected. After shipment, the prime vendor was required to submit electronically an invoice for each delivery order to the payment office. Only one electronic invoice per delivery order was allowed, and each invoice had to include the correct call number. The DPSC system attempted to match the invoice to the customer obligation and upon finding a match, would approve payment of the sum invoiced or the sum obligated (whichever was less) and transfer funds electronically. The DPSC was obligated to transfer electronically payment to the prime vendor within 15 days of the invoice or supplies being received, whichever was later.

On or about January 1,1996, United Medical submitted an offer in response to the [434]*434amended solicitation. In this offer, it proposed a 6.4 percent distribution fee for the contract at issue, to be added to the purchases made under the DAPA arrangement.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
63 Fed. Cl. 430, 2005 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1, 2005 WL 19240, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-medical-supply-co-v-united-states-uscfc-2005.