Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-05062/USCOURTS-ca13-14-05062-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
K-Con Building Systems, Inc.
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2014-5062

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal 

Claims in No. 1:05-cv-01054-MMS, Judge Margaret M. 

Sweeney. 

______________________ 

Decided: February 12, 2015

______________________ 

WILLIAM ATKINS SCOTT, Pederson & Scott, P.C., 

Charleston, SC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. 

DANIEL B. VOLK, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil 

Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented 

by STUART F. DELERY, ROBERT E. KIRSCHMAN, JR., BRYANT 

G. SNEE. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, NEWMAN and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.

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2 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

TARANTO, Circuit Judge. 

K-Con Building Systems, Inc., entered into a contract 

with the federal government to construct a building for 

the Coast Guard. Once K-Con finished, the government 

imposed liquidated damages for delay in completion. KCon sued in the Court of Federal Claims, seeking two 

forms of relief. First, it requested remission of the liquidated damages on two grounds—that the contract’s 

liquidated-damages clause was unenforceable and that KCon was entitled to an extension of the completion date. 

Second, it requested additional compensation based on 

work performed in response to government requests that 

K-Con alleges amounted to contract changes. The Court 

of Federal Claims held that the contract’s liquidateddamages clause is enforceable and that K-Con did not 

comply with the written-notice precondition for invoking 

the contract clause governing changes. It also held that 

K-Con’s claim for an extension on the completion date 

must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

On January 20, 2004, K-Con entered into a contract 

with the Coast Guard, under which K-Con would construct a “cutter support team building” in Port Huron, 

Michigan, for $582,641. The project was to be completed 

by November 20, 2004, with K-Con agreeing to pay $589 

in liquidated damages for each day of delay. On May 23, 

2005, the Coast Guard accepted the building as substantially complete. It withheld payment of $109,554 as 

liquidated damages for what it calculated to be tardiness 

of 186 days. No party challenges the calculation.

On July 28, 2005, K-Con sent a letter to the government contracting officer requesting remission of the 

liquidated damages “wrongfully withheld from the contract.” J.A. 259, Letter from K-Con to Contracting Officer 

(July 8, 2005) (first letter). As grounds for remission, KCon asserted that the “liquidated damages [constituted] 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 3

an impermissible penalty” and that the Coast Guard 

“failed to issue extensions to the completion date as a 

result of changes to the contract.” Id. It provided no 

details regarding its request for a time extension based on 

contract changes. After the contracting officer denied KCon’s request for remission, K-Con sued in the Court of 

Federal Claims under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA), 

41 U.S.C. §§ 601-613 (2006).1 K-Con sought remission of 

$109,554 plus interest in liquidated damages on the two 

grounds asserted in its July 28, 2005 letter. Original 

Complaint, K-Con Bldg. Sys., Inc. v. United States, No. 

05-01054C (Fed. Cl. Sept. 30, 2005).

On December 15, 2006, while litigation in the Court of 

Federal Claims was underway, K-Con submitted a second 

letter to the contracting officer. J.A. 263–64, Letter from 

K-Con to Contracting Officer (Dec. 15, 2006) (second 

letter). The second letter extensively details the contract 

changes allegedly made by the Coast Guard during the 

contract term and asks for a new remedy—$196,126.38 

for additional work necessitated by the changes—as well 

as an extension of the completion date of the contract. 

The contracting officer denied K-Con’s requests. K-Con 

then amended its complaint in the Court of Federal 

Claims to add allegations about the matter covered in its 

second letter and to seek, beyond the liquidated-damages 

relief, a judgment of $196,126.38 and a 186-day extension. 

Amended Complaint, K-Con Bldg. Sys., No. 05-01054C 

(Fed. Cl. Mar. 18, 2007). 

The Court of Federal Claims first ruled, in deciding 

an initial government motion for summary judgment, that 

the contract’s liquidated-damages clause is enforceable. 

1 The cited provisions apply to this case. Since 

2011, the Contract Disputes Act has been codified at 41 

U.S.C. §§ 7101-7109. See Pub. L. No. 111-350, 124 Stat. 

3677 (2011).

 

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4 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

The court later issued two rulings in deciding a second 

government motion for summary judgment. It held that 

K-Con did not provide valid written notice regarding 

contract changes and therefore had not satisfied a precondition to claiming additional compensation under the 

contract’s changes clause. And it dismissed, for lack of 

jurisdiction, K-Con’s time-extension claim for remission of 

liquidated damages.

K-Con appeals all three rulings. We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

DISCUSSION

Whether the Court of Federal Claims had jurisdiction 

under the CDA is a question of law we decide de novo. 

Reflectone, Inc. v. Dalton, 60 F.3d 1572, 1575 (Fed. Cir. 

1995) (en banc). A plaintiff “bears the burden of establishing subject matter jurisdiction by a preponderance of 

the evidence.” Reynolds v. Army & Air Force Exch. Serv., 

846 F.2d 746, 748 (Fed. Cir. 1988). “[W]e review a grant 

of summary judgment by the Court of Federal Claims de 

novo, drawing justifiable factual inferences in favor of the 

party opposing the judgment.” Long Island Sav. Bank, 

FSB v. United States, 503 F.3d 1234, 1244 (Fed. Cir. 

2007). “Once the moving party has satisfied its initial 

burden, the opposing party must establish a genuine issue 

of material fact and cannot rest on mere allegations, but 

must present actual evidence.” Id.

A 

Before turning to the merits, we must determine 

which issues the Court of Federal Claims had jurisdiction 

to decide under the CDA. “The CDA grants [the Court of 

Federal Claims] jurisdiction over actions brought on 

claims within twelve months of a contracting officer’s final 

decision.” James M. Ellett Constr. Co. v. United States, 93 

F.3d 1537, 1541 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (citing 41 U.S.C. 

§ 609(a)). Jurisdiction requires both that a claim meeting 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 5

certain requirements have been submitted to the relevant 

contracting officer and that the contracting officer have 

issued a final decision on that claim. Id. at 1541–42.

A claim is “‘a written demand or written assertion by 

one of the contracting parties seeking, as a matter of 

right, the payment of money in a sum certain, the adjustment or interpretation of contract terms, or other 

relief arising under or relating to the contract.’” Reflectone, 60 F.3d at 1575 (quoting regulation then codified at 

48 C.F.R. § 33.201; current version at 48 C.F.R. § 52.233-

1). A claim need not “be submitted in any particular form 

or use any particular wording . . . [, but it must provide] a 

clear and unequivocal statement that gives the contracting officer adequate notice of the basis and amount of the 

claim.” Contract Cleaning Maint., Inc. v. United States, 

811 F.2d 586, 592 (Fed. Cir. 1987). A contracting officer’s 

final decision on a claim may either be written, 41 U.S.C. 

§ 605(a), or implied from “[a]ny failure by the contracting 

officer to issue a decision on a contract claim within the 

period required,” id. § 605(c)(5).

Identifying what constitutes a separate claim is 

important. We have long held that the jurisdictional 

standard must be applied to each claim, not an entire 

case; jurisdiction exists over those claims which satisfy 

the requirements of an adequate statement of the amount 

sought and an adequate statement of the basis for the 

request. See Joseph Morton Co. v. United States, 757 F.2d 

1273, 1281 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“Congress did not intend the 

word ‘claim’ to mean the whole case between the contractor and the Government; but, rather, that ‘claim’ mean 

each claim under the CDA for money that is one part of a 

divisible case.”); see also M. Maropakis Carpentry, Inc. v. 

United States, 609 F.3d 1323, 1327–32 (Fed. Cir. 2010) 

(reaching different results for different claims in determining Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction). Claim 

identification is important also for application of the rule 

that, once a claim is in litigation, the contracting officer 

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6 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

may not rule on it—even if the claim is not properly in 

litigation because it was not properly submitted to and 

denied by the contracting officer before it was placed in 

litigation. Sharman Co. v. United States, 2 F.3d 1564, 

1571–72 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (“Once a claim is in litigation, 

the Department of Justice gains exclusive authority to act 

in the pending litigation . . . [,] divest[ing] the contracting 

officer of his authority to issue a final decision on the 

claim.”) (citing 28 U.S.C. §§ 516–520), overruled on other 

grounds, Reflectone, 60 F.3d 1572; see also John Cibinic, 

Jr., et al., Administration of Government Contracts 1292–

93 (4th ed. 2006) (“The contracting officer’s authority to 

settle claims does not extend to cases in which litigation 

has commenced in a court. . . . [N]o final decision may be 

issued on a matter that is already in litigation.”). 

Our longstanding demand that a claim adequately 

specify both the amount sought and the basis for the 

request implies that, at least for present purposes, we 

should treat requests as involving separate claims if they 

either request different remedies (whether monetary or 

non-monetary) or assert grounds that are materially 

different from each other factually or legally. See Contract Cleaning, 811 F.2d at 592 (evaluating the adequacy 

of a claim on the notice it gives of the remedy requested 

and the basis for that remedy); 48 C.F.R. § 52.233-1(c)

(defining a claim as a written demand for a remedy “as a 

matter of right”). This approach, which has been applied 

in a practical way, serves the objective of giving the 

contracting officer an ample pre-suit opportunity to rule 

on a request, knowing at least the relief sought and what 

substantive issues are raised by the request. 

We have not treated the different-remedies component as imposing so rigid a standard as to preclude all 

litigation adjustments in amounts “based upon matters 

developed in litigation.” Tecom, Inc. v. United States, 732 

F.2d 935, 937–38 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (“‘It would be most 

disruptive of normal litigation procedure if any increase 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 7

in the amount of a claim based upon matters developed in 

litigation before the court [or board] had to be submitted 

to the contracting officer before the court [or board] could 

continue to a final resolution on the claim.’ ”) (alterations 

in original; quoting J.F. Shea Co. v. United States, 4 Cl. 

Ct. 46, 54 (1983)). But we have differentiated claims 

seeking different types of remedy, such as expectation 

damages versus consequential damages. Case, Inc. v. 

United States, 88 F.3d 1004, 1010 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (holding that two cases “involved different claims” even though 

both “arose out of the same underlying set of facts and 

involved [similar, if not the same] allegations of defective 

specifications,” because the later-filed case requested 

“additional compensation” beyond the progress payments 

requested in the other case, including lost profits). In a 

similar vein, merely adding factual details or legal argumentation does not create a different claim, but presenting a materially different factual or legal theory (e.g., 

breach of contract for not constructing a building on time 

versus breach of contract for constructing with the wrong 

materials) does create a different claim. See Santa Fe 

Eng’rs, Inc. v. United States, 818 F.2d 856, 858–60 (Fed. 

Cir. 1987) (holding that a claim for damages related to 

three change orders was different from a claim for damages related to “ ‘the collective nature of all the problems, 

changes and directives issued on the project’”) (emphasis 

in original). We have gone beyond the face of claims to 

make these distinctions. See, e.g., Sharman, 2 F.3d at 

1571 (equating claims that “allege[d] entitlement to the 

same money based on the same partial performance, only 

under a different legal label”); Scott Timber Co. v. United 

States, 333 F.3d 1358, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (“Scott may 

have posed slightly different legal theories for the breach, 

but Scott’s claim is essentially the same as presented to 

the CO.”).

In its amended complaint in this case, K-Con presented three discrete claims—i.e., three distinct combinations 

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8 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

of a request for a remedy and a basis for that request. 

First, it claimed that the liquidated-damages clause is 

unenforceable and on that basis sought remission of 

$109,554 plus interest in liquidated damages withheld by 

the Coast Guard. Second, as an additional basis for 

seeking the same remedy of remission, it claimed that it 

was entitled to time extensions that the Coast Guard 

never provided. Third, it claimed that, because of contract changes made by the Coast Guard, it had to do 

additional work that entitled it to $196,126.38 over and 

above remission of liquidated damages. We agree with

the Court of Federal Claims that it had jurisdiction to 

decide the first and third claims, which relate to enforceability of the liquidated-damages clause and to alleged 

contract changes, but not the second claim, which challenges the Coast Guard’s failure to grant time extensions. 

Jurisdiction over the unenforceability claim is undisputed, and properly so. There was adequate pre-suit 

notice to the contracting officer in K-Con’s first letter, in 

which K-Con clearly requested a sum certain ($118,950.68 

plus interest, in remission of liquidated damages) on the 

ground that the liquidated damages imposed in this case 

amounted to an “impermissible penalty.” J.A. 259. There 

was also, in the contracting officer’s first denial, a valid 

pre-suit final decision rejecting K-Con’s contentions. 

 Jurisdiction over the contract-changes claim is disputed. Like the Court of Federal Claims, we conclude 

that there was CDA jurisdiction over that claim, based on

K-Con’s second letter to the contracting officer. That

letter provides ample detail regarding the basis for the

claim, including what specific actions by the Coast Guard 

allegedly made constructive changes to contract requirements; and the letter clearly requests award of a sum 

certain as a remedy ($196,126.38 in compensation for 

extra work performed).

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 9

The government urges that there was no authorized 

final decision on that claim before litigation on it commenced, because K-Con sent its second letter after filing 

its original complaint, which the government says already 

contained the contract-changes claim. See Sharman, 2 

F.3d at 1571–72. We disagree with the premise that the 

second letter’s contract-changes claim was already in 

litigation when K-Con sent that letter. The original 

complaint does complain about contract changes and 

include some factual assertions shared by the contractchanges claim presented in the second letter. Compare

J.A. 68 (original complaint) (“[T]he Coast Guard changed 

and modified the Contract in among other ways, by failing 

to properly review and approve drawings submitted by KCon, and directing K-Con to perform additional work that 

was not required by the Contract.”) with J.A. 264–66 

(second letter) (complaining of contract-changes from the 

Coast Guard’s review of design submittals). But the 

remedy requested in the two documents is categorically 

different: the original complaint asks for remission of 

liquidated damages, whereas the second letter asks for 

compensation for extra work performed. That is enough 

to make the requests different claims. Consequently, the

contracting officer’s rejection of the second letter’s contract-changes claim, a rejection issued upon full consideration of its merits, was an authorized final decision

sufficient to establish jurisdiction in the Court of Federal 

Claims. 

The Court of Federal Claims did not have jurisdiction 

over K-Con’s time-extension claim. At bottom, the timeextension claim is a request for remission of liquidated 

damages on the ground that the Coast Guard failed to

issue time extensions for additional work added to the 

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10 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

contract.2 K-Con squarely placed that claim in litigation

through its original complaint, which means that K-Con 

had to present that claim adequately in its first letter, not 

in the post-suit second letter. But the first letter plainly

fails to allege enough detail to provide adequate notice of 

the basis for any time extension. Indeed, K-Con admitted 

to the Court of Federal Claims that its first letter “could 

not be a valid [time-extension] claim.” J.A. 44. 

2 It might be argued that there are in fact two timeextension claims at issue: (1) a time-extension claim from 

the first letter and original complaint requesting remission of liquidated damages; and (2) a time-extension claim 

from the second letter and amended complaint requesting 

a declaratory judgment of a 186-day extension. Compare 

J.A. 259 (first letter) (requesting remission in part because “the government failed to issue extensions”), and 

J.A. 68 at ¶ 6, 11 (original complaint) (same), with J.A. 

266 (second letter) (requesting “an extension in the contract performance period resulting from [certain contract] 

changes”), and J.A. 85 (amended complaint) (same). But 

K-Con has identified only one concrete benefit it would 

receive from its requested declaratory judgment of entitlement to a 186-day extension: remission of the liquidated damages withheld for tardiness under the contract. 

See Sharman, 2 F.3d at 1571. In other circumstances, a 

declaratory judgment of a time extension might be a freestanding and independently meaningful remedy.

 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 11

B 

1 

On the merits, we first address K-Con’s claim that the 

liquidated-damages clause is unenforceable as imposing

an impermissible penalty. K-Con faces a steep climb in 

trying to establish unenforceability. “When damages are 

uncertain or difficult to measure, a liquidated damages 

clause will be enforced as long as ‘the amount stipulated 

for is not so extravagant, or disproportionate to the 

amount of property loss, as to show that compensation 

was not the object aimed at or as to imply fraud, mistake, 

circumvention or oppression.’ ” DJ Mfg. Corp. v. United 

States, 86 F.3d 1130, 1133 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (quoting Wise 

v. United States, 249 U.S. 361, 365 (1919)). “With that 

narrow exception, ‘[t]here is no sound reason why persons 

competent and free to contract may not agree upon this 

subject as fully as upon any other, or why their agreement, when fairly and understandingly entered into with 

a view to just compensation for the anticipated loss, 

should not be enforced.’” Id. (alteration in original) 

(quoting Wise, 249 U.S. at 365); see also 48 C.F.R. 

§ 11.501(b). “[T]he test is objective,” and “regardless of 

how the liquidated damage figure was arrived at, the 

liquidated damages clause will be enforced if the amount 

stipulated is reasonable for the particular agreement at 

the time it is made.” DJ Mfg. Corp., 86 F.3d at 1137 

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

We agree with the Court of Federal Claims that the 

liquidated-damages clause here is enforceable. The clause 

sets a rate of $589 per day of delay for a $582,641 contract. K-Con has alleged that the Coast Guard made 

certain errors in arriving at the $589 figure for inclusion 

in the contract, such as a “mathematical error [amounting 

to an additional] $26.30/day.” Appellant’s Br. at 18. KCon’s allegations, however, are immaterial. Even if the 

alleged errors were made, the ultimate rate of $589 per 

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12 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

day is reasonable. DJ Mfg. Corp., 86 F.3d at 1137. At the 

time of contracting, it was foreseeable that delay would 

create a number of costs for the Coast Guard, including 

costs for travel, inspection, and other work by government 

personnel—all continuing beyond the date by which such 

activities for this contract should have ended. J.A. 203–

04 (contracting officer tabulating various costs); see also 

48 C.F.R. § 11.502(b) (requiring that rates in 

“[c]onstruction contracts with liquidated damages provisions . . . include the estimated daily cost of Government 

inspection and superintendence” as well as “other expected expenses”). The exact dollar figure of those costs 

was “uncertain or difficult to measure,” but given the

general existence of such costs, it cannot be said that the 

$589-per-day rate agreed upon by the parties at the time 

of contracting was “so extravagant[] or disproportionate to 

the amount of property loss” as to constitute an impermissible penalty on K-Con, rather than a reasonable 

estimate of the costs that delay in job completion would 

likely impose. See DJ Mfg. Corp., 86 F.3d at 1133–34. 

K-Con counters that the rate cannot reflect a reasonable estimate of costs because it includes personnel costs 

that “would have been incurred no matter what.” Appellant’s Br. at 19. Specifically, K-Con argues that Coast 

Guard “personnel did not work any more hours, work any 

differently, or get paid any more or any less” due to delay 

under the contract. Id. This argument is meritless. It is 

reasonable to expect that delay, if it occurs, will require

personnel to devote more time and resources to the project 

than they would have if the project had been completed on 

time. Moreover, even if the same personnel might work 

the same number of hours regardless of delay, it is reasonable to expect that delay would force them to reallocate their hours and impair their ability to give 

planned attention to other projects, to the detriment of 

those other projects. In short, inefficiency plausibly 

breeds administrative costs, which the agreed-upon rate 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 13

here properly estimated. See Jennie-O Foods, Inc. v. 

United States, 580 F.2d 400, 413 (Ct. Cl. 1978). K-Con 

has not raised a genuine issue of material fact regarding

the rate’s reasonableness.

2 

The second merits issue involves K-Con’s claim that it 

is entitled to compensation for additional work it performed because of what it says were constructive changes 

made to the contract by the Coast Guard. The relevant 

portion of the contract’s changes clause reads as follows:

(b) Any other written or oral order . . . from 

the Contracting Officer that causes a change shall 

be treated as a change order under this clause; 

provided, that the Contractor gives the Contracting Officer written notice stating

(1) the date, circumstances, and source of the 

order and

(2) that the Contractor regards the order as a 

change order.

. . . .

(d) . . . [E]xcept for an adjustment based on defective specifications, no adjustment for any 

change under paragraph (b) of this clause shall be 

made for any costs incurred more than 20 days before the Contractor gives written notice as required.

48 C.F.R. § 52.243-4 (Aug. 1987); see J.A. 145 (contract 

incorporating the changes clause).

K-Con alleges that the Coast Guard made two sets of 

changes to the contract. First, it alleges that, on January 

28, 2004, the Coast Guard requested that the building’s 

eave height be increased by four inches. Second, it alleges 

that, starting in April 2004 and continuing through July 

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14 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

2004, the Coast Guard requested various changes upon 

reviewing K-Con’s design submissions. We agree with the

Court of Federal Claims that, with regard to all of the 

alleged changes, K-Con did not comply with the writtennotice requirement of the contract’s changes clause.

Throughout the period that the Coast Guard was allegedly making changes, K-Con never objected to the 

Coast Guard’s actions or suggested that it was entitled to 

an adjustment of contract terms. Rather, K-Con repeatedly expressed its intent to incorporate the Coast Guard’s 

requests as though they were consistent with the terms of 

the contract. E.g., J.A. 345–46 (K-Con responding to 

Coast Guard’s review comments with brief, affirmative 

statements, such as “[w]ill comply,” “[c]orrection will be 

made,” and “[d]etail will be revised”). It was only once KCon submitted its contract-changes claim in its second 

letter to the contracting officer—more than two years 

after any of the changes at issue were allegedly ordered—

that K-Con seems to have provided written notice adequate under paragraph (b). Only then did K-Con identify 

the “date, circumstances, and source of the order[s]” it 

objected to and indicate that it “regard[ed] the order[s] as 

change order[s].” 48 C.F.R. § 52.243-4(b). 

Two years is well beyond the 20-day time limit imposed by paragraph (d). And the notice provision serves 

an important purpose in a contract in which some government requests are plainly contemplated under the 

contract. Timely written notice differentiates requests 

the contractor views as outside the contract from those it 

deems contemplated by the contract. See Singer Co. 

Librascope Div. v. United States, 568 F.2d 695, 711 (Ct. 

Cl. 1977) (“[T]he work was done without notice to the 

contracting officer that Librascope considered the effort 

involved to be extra-contractual. . . . The contractor’s 

failure to protest, while perhaps not an outright bar to the 

claim, is nevertheless an evidentiary consideration which, 

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K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US 15

cance.”). And it gives the government timely notice of 

what amounts it might be on the hook for, so that it will 

not be surprised by money claims later, as well as an 

opportunity to address demands for more money when it 

might yet avoid them.

Sometimes, extenuating circumstances have weighed 

against strict enforcement of the time limit. See generally

Powers Regulator Co., GSBCA No. 4668, 80-2 BCA

¶ 14,463 (Apr. 30, 1980) (reviewing how the time limit has 

been enforced by boards of contract appeals and enumerating exceptions to its strict enforcement); see also HoelSteffen Const. Co. v. United States, 456 F.2d 760, 767–68 

(Ct. Cl. 1972) (noting that a “severe and narrow application of the notice requirements [of the suspension clause 

in the then-extant Federal Procurement Regulations] . . . 

would be out of tune with the language and purpose of the 

notice provisions, as well as with this court’s wholesome 

concern that notice provisions in contract-adjustment 

clauses not be applied too technically and illiberally 

where the Government is quite aware of the operative 

facts”). But there are no such extenuating circumstances 

here. K-Con has proffered no evidence suggesting that 

the Coast Guard knew or should have known that K-Con 

considered the work requests to be contract changes until, 

at the earliest, K-Con submitted its first letter to the 

contracting officer. That letter, sent a year after the last 

of the alleged changes, lacks any detail with regard to 

what K-Con considered to be the changes made and offers 

the Coast Guard a simple choice between acceding to KCon’s demands or being sued. Such notice does not comply with the changes clause.

K-Con’s sole counterargument is that it did not have 

to comply with the notice provision of the changes clause 

because compliance would have been futile. Even if a 

futility exception exists, however, K-Con’s argument fails 

because it has not shown that compliance would have 

been futile. The Coast Guard never stated or implied in 

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16 K-CON BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC. v. US

advance that it would reject allegations of contract changes. See J.A. 252 (“Design Coordination Review Comments” form, which left a space for the contractor to 

respond with action code “dc,” meaning “[d]o not concur 

with [the Coast Guard’s] comment for reasons as indicated”). And although the contracting officer, in response to 

K-Con’s second letter, did ultimately reject K-Con’s contract-changes claim, deeming that fact sufficient to establish futility would threaten to erase the notice 

requirement. In any event, it is unknown what would 

have happened had K-Con broached the issue of changes 

around the time the Coast Guard made the work requests 

at issue. The submission of the second letter prompted 

the Coast Guard to make a choice between giving in to KCon’s demands or subjecting itself to further litigation; 

timely objections would have presented a very different 

choice between at least four options—refraining from 

making requests regarding K-Con’s work, altering the 

nature of the requests, keeping the requests the same but 

making equitable adjustments to the contract, or rejecting 

the allegations of changes altogether and thereby risking

litigation or a halt to the project. K-Con failed to comply 

with the changes clause, and its after-the-fact speculations about what would have happened had it complied do 

not create a genuine dispute of material fact regarding 

whether it should be excused for its failure.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court 

of Federal Claims is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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