MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION DENIED: February 4, 2009 
CBCA 1072-R 
OREGON WOODS, INC., 
Appellant, 
v. 
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 
Respondent. 
Rick Herson, President of Oregon Woods, Inc., Eugene, OR, appearing for Appellant. 
Richard A. DeClerck, Office of the Regional Solicitor, Department of the Interior, 
Portland, OR, counsel for Respondent. 
Before Board Judges DANIELS  (Chairman), VERGILIO , and McCANN . 
DANIELS , Board Judge. 
The Board found that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), a bureau of the 
Department of the Interior, had a reasonable basis for terminating for the convenience of the 
Government a contract it had awarded to Oregon Woods, Inc. (Oregon Woods).  Oregon 
Woods, Inc. v. Department of the Interior , CBCA 1072, 09-1 BCA ¶ 34,014 (2008).  The 
contractor moves for reconsideration of that decision. 1 The contractor correctly points out 
1 Oregon Woods’ communication actually “requests that the full Board of 
Contract Appeals reconsider its Decision.”  The Board’s rules of procedure provide 
(continued...) 

  
  
         
 
    
  
     
      
2 CBCA 1072-R 
one mistake in the decision, as to the month in which a contract modification occurred.  The 
Board is issuing an order correcting this error, which has no impact on the analysis or holding 
of the decision. The contractor fails to raise a valid basis for reconsideration, however.  We 
therefore deny the motion. 
Oregon Woods recites the following as reasons for reconsideration: 
1.	 The FWS did not adhere to the Board’s rules regarding organization of the 
appeal file, and it did not include in the appeal file documents the contractor 
had interest in reading. 
2.	 One document in the appeal file contains a date of August 24, 2007, for 
contract award, though the actual date of award was September 4, 2007. 
3.	 The FWS should not have evaluated offers which the contracting officer 
misplaced and discovered shortly after she had informed Oregon Woods of the 
award of the contract. 
4.	 The date of modification 2 to the contract was October 12, 2007, rather than 
September 12, 2007.  According to Oregon Woods, the misstatement of the 
date in the Board’s decision was an “inadvertent mistake.” 
5.	 The reason cited by the contracting officer for denying Oregon Woods’ 
November 16, 2007, claim was incorrect; the requisite form was submitted to 
the contracting officer. 
6.	 The Board overlooked or ignored disputed material facts, principal among 
them that the contracting officer reinstated the evaluation process in order to 
take advantage of a cheaper price for the contract work.  This action by the 
contracting officer was evidence of bad faith. 
1 (...continued) 
separately for motions for reconsideration by the panel which issued a decision and motions 
for full Board consideration.  Rules 26, 28 (48 CFR 6101.26, .28 (2008)).  Because a motion 
for full Board consideration may only be made after a panel has issued a decision on a 
motion for reconsideration, Rule 28(a)(2), we have treated Oregon Woods’ communication 
as a motion for reconsideration by the panel which issued the decision. 

 
 
 
 
      
  
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
  
 
3 CBCA 1072-R 
7.	 Although a termination is valid if adequate cause for it is found, the 
Government may not cure a bad faith breach of a contract by employing a 
termination clause. 
8.	 The FWS regional engineer’s statements about the contract’s specifications 
being inadequate, needing evaluation, and probably needing redesign were 
contrived as a result of coaching by the contracting officer’s supervisor. 
Oregon Woods’ president says that he reached this conclusion based on the 
engineer’s statement to him on September 14, 2007, that the engineer had had 
no knowledge of the project until the supervisor had contacted him on the 
previous day.  Further, the reissued request for proposals, in the view of 
Oregon Woods’ president, does not reflect cardinal changes to the design. 
9.	 The presiding judge engaged in ex parte discussions with the FWS’ counsel. 
Oregon Woods’ president says that he reached this conclusion based on the 
judge’s comment, during a scheduling conference, that he understood that 
settlement negotiations between the parties had not been fruitful.  The judge 
could not have known of the outcome of the negotiations, according to the 
contractor, unless the lawyer had advised him of it privately. 
The Board’s Rule 26 explains that reconsideration may be granted for any of the 
following reasons: newly discovered evidence which could not have been earlier discovered, 
even through due diligence; justifiable or excusable mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or 
neglect; fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct of an adverse party; the decision has 
been satisfied, released, or discharged, or a prior decision upon which it is based has been 
reversed or otherwise vacated, and it is no longer equitable that the decision should have 
prospective application; the decision is void, whether for lack of jurisdiction or otherwise; 
or any other ground justifying reconsideration, including a reason established by the rules of 
common law or equity applicable as between private parties in the courts of the United 
States. 
None of the reasons given by Oregon Woods meets Rule 26’s standards of good 
grounds for reconsideration.  The Board determined that the FWS’ termination of the 
contract for the convenience of the Government was justified on the basis of the regional 
engineer’s belief that the contract’s specifications and drawings were inadequate, required 
evaluation, and probably required redesign.  Reasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 have nothing to 

 
  
    
   
       
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
     
    
 
4 CBCA 1072-R 
do with this conclusion. 2 The best that might be said for any of them is that they establish 
disagreements about immaterial facts.  As we held in granting the agency’s motion for 
summary relief, only genuine issues of material  fact will defeat such a motion.  Reason 7 is 
simply argument similar to contentions the contractor made earlier. Rule 26(a) clearly states, 
“Arguments already made and reinterpretations of old evidence are not sufficient grounds 
for granting reconsideration.” 
The only reason given by Oregon Woods which is even applicable to the Board’s 
reasoning in upholding the termination for convenience is number 8, that the FWS regional 
engineer’s statements about the contract’s specifications were contrived as a result of 
coaching by the contracting officer’s supervisor.  The asserted fact supporting this 
supposition is that the engineer told the contractor’s president, after award, that he had no 
knowledge of the project until the supervisor had contacted him on the previous day.  We 
have no reason to doubt the validity of this assertion, which is consistent with a fact the 
Board included in the Background section of its original decision.  How one gets from there 
to the posited conclusion is not apparent to us, however.  In our judgment, the connection 
between the two is so extremely tenuous that no judge or jury could find a verdict for the 
contractor on the basis of this evidence.  Consequently, our grant of the motion for summary 
relief was appropriate.  See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 248-52 (1986). 
Oregon Woods’ additional asserted fact supporting reason 8, that the reissued request for 
proposals does not reflect cardinal changes to the design, would not change our decision even 
if it could be proved. We held that the agency’s need for an indefinite length of time to 
reevaluate the specifications justified the termination.  Whether the specifications turned out 
to be reasonable or not is beside the point. 
2 In reason 4, Oregon Woods correctly points out that modification 2 was issued 
on October 12, 2007, not on September 12, 2007.  The date of the modification is immaterial 
to our decision, however, so changing it does not merit reconsideration. 
We note that reason 9, the allegation of ex parte  communications between the 
presiding judge and the FWS’ counsel, is pure fantasy.  As the FWS points out in opposing 
the motion, the Board had announced that the scheduling conference to which Oregon Woods 
adverts was to have been convened only if the parties reported that settlement negotiations 
had failed. The judge knew the result of the negotiations only because at least one party had 
reported to his assistant that the conference would have to go on because the condition which 
would have obviated it had not occurred.  Response to Appellant’s Motion for 
Reconsideration at 3 n.1; Board Order at 2 (June 3, 2008). 

5 CBCA 1072-R 
Decision
 
Oregon Woods’ motion for reconsideration is DENIED .
 
_________________________ 
STEPHEN M. DANIELS 
Board Judge 
We concur: 
_________________________ _________________________ 
JOSEPH A. VERGILIO R. ANTHONY McCANN 
Board Judge Board Judge