of my name is jay douglas showing i'm representing the talent in this case which is defense supply systems inc and this appeal has been brought primarily based upon the armed services that two of the attorneys indicated on the government's brief head and not filed interest of appearance second of all maybe more troubling to me was the final document included with the government's exhibits in the joint exhibit appears to be a draft unsigned copy of the s p c s decision and i simply registers that is that was very puzzling to me as to how you could of the government up until this spring that indicated it was not a change it looked like a change it was not a change in this brief the government for the first time indicated on page eighteen that in fact is a change ok what puzzles me is the government wrote three probably one of the sloppiest i've seen and i've seen a lot of them in these cases but within a few days whether they call it first or whatever it is we don't want to start over we don't want you to make the you've already made all the dollars we're prepared to pay it's a fact i think they're already had paid and they were they were prepared to say they've never quarreled about home drinking champagne and having a good time and here you are up here at the court of appeals i don't even think about what you're seizing all of this turned out that they are arguing over who's going to pay for having shipped one bottle from there to here this is a very puzzling case to me we usually get cases that involve real money now i understand that two thousand dollars may be important to some people it was it was written by somebody who was asleep at the time but i don't want to suggest they were on something because i have no evidence of that but they were clearly as free will and they were and they clarified it as quickly as human nature allows is issued it changes the contract the contractor has no he simply can't take all i got a call from the government and i don't have to comply with the contract is changed i thin simply do what i now think they want despite the fact i've had verbal communication with regard to that issue because it makes sense to interpret that modification as in appropriate doesn't make any sense and i agree it is not meant and then of course but then they have a phone call a few days later as judge plague or pointed out that explains you know listen this is what this is all about we don't want you to start all over again we just want to get some testing on which to me made perfect sense given the fact that there was some question raised about the source of supply of some components and their performance and  i think this is a crazy case myself but what does tiger tell you when you're when you're taking in session sure that's you when you're taking action against your you're your best and biggest customer well the contractor actually offered to provide the unit back in december of zero to it although the response from the contract announcer at that point is that's fine as long as you meet all of these conditions but what do you expect the contractor to do when the contract is modified to say you are now required to provide the first article test i would think the contractor at that point would scratch its respective head i say without at least two and would call up and say help me i don't understand what's going on here or would go home and take a vacation for a few days come back to work and discover a phone call from the govern look let me tell you what we really meant there wouldn't you think that's what a contractor would do i can understand what the contract to this modification didn't come out of nowhere there had been all kinds of discussions just what the government requires the contracting officer on the day she should this modification instructed the administrative contracting option in colorado telling her that this contractor will proce and when he receives the modification he receives a modification he said i can't do a first article they come out and say we're incorporating again the first article requirements contract contractor has no obligation to say gosh i'm not going to follow the direction or what do you really mean it's clear what is meant here this or sharing with you said there was a lot of discussion and correspondence leading up to this mo yes did any of those discussions suggest in any way that the government was leaning toward repeating the entire contract  some sort of a modification that would obligate your apply it to provide a complete new set of these done no there were discussions with regard to first art they received a modification that simply incorporated the first article test certainly was it was very confusing but it was not until three weeks later that the government came back and issued a subsequent modification in the meantime had the contractor started making the dollars he had not he was trying to figure out how the fit of boring r its two thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars it's about ten thousand dollars it is not a lot of money but i think what's at stake in the principle of the thing well it's what can a contractor understand when you receive a change were you out of a closing up and winding up their business affairs surely if they don't no longer exist because of this case because this contract was a major impact on their on their business me please support i'd like to address one primary issue in response to what we've heard from the chair and that's whether or not we had any type of a compensable change in this case to the contract is no model is going to be used in a government contract ministration course was anybody ever sit down with the contracting officer after a case like this and say let's have a little training session has anybody ever do that yes your honor in fact when i was at that level several years ago we would often sit down as some type of an after action review and do exactly that and i'm sure it happened in this case as well because as you know this is not the first time we've seen a case i've never seen one quite like this but this is not the first time we've seen these kinds of cases come flowing through where there's been a dispute over a mob that nobody understood one of the main challenges runners just getting the contracting officers to contract contact their council for doing things like this that moves a lot of difficulties we have however in this case we not only have the phone call from counsel for the government several days later clarifying any ambiguity we also have an e mail from the contractor in the same day and i like to says is that the contractor understood very well what the problem was before the modifications issue so it's unclear if migration may have been on its face in a vacuum there was no compensable change there was language at me which the government in its recent briefly said no no no we're not going at that you should have gone with the intent of the modification if the intent of the modification is as state the contractor was to and modification for deleted one unit from the contract and the only unit that could be deleted from the contract was the unit requested under provide note that she invoked the first article requirements of the contract which as stated in the contract requires that preproduction units three weeks later after conversations letters back and forth she finally issues modification for deleting the first article requirement of my patients were in dishes a letter which simply states what wants she wants a unit it's already been i don't understand why it was so difficult to write that letter back in january about three rather than two modifications in april of zero three and i understand the confusion but a contractor has no obligation or has an obligation to comply with the contract as written and as modified when you receive unilateral direction from the contracting officer he is required to comply  when he complied what he did is he sent back says gosh you sent out this modification this is what that means because of how poorly well we say poorly worded it maybe poorly worded based on her actual intent but is clear what she is required contractor has no ability to simply say oh i'm not going to do it it's under contract to comply or after three weeks of back and forth conversations they finally get a letters where the country provides information that she really wants her true intent and that the government actually corrects what it mistakenly done oh three those are all documents written by the government contractor has nothing i mean he's obligated to comply