NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

VETERANS CONTRACTING GROUP, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES, WILLIAMS BUILDING 

COMPANY, INC.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2018-1410

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal 

Claims in No. 1:17-cv-01188-CFL, Judge Charles F. 

Lettow. 

______________________ 

Decided: November 20, 2018

______________________ 

JOSEPH ANTHONY WHITCOMB, Rocky Mountain Disability Law Group, Denver, CO, argued for plaintiffappellant. Also represented by TIMOTHY TURNER, Whitcomb, Selinsky, McAuliffe, PC, Denver, CO. 

 ELIZABETH ANNE SPECK, Commercial Litigation 

Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of 

Justice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee 

United States. Also represented by ALISON VICKS, TARA 
2 VETERANS CONTRACTING GROUP v. UNITED STATES

K. HOGAN, ROBERT EDWARD KIRSCHMAN, JR., JOSEPH H.

HUNT. 

 JOHN M. MANFREDONIA, Manfredonia Law Offices, 

LLC, Cresskill, NJ, for defendant-appellee Williams 

Building Company, Inc. 

 ______________________ 

Before LOURIE, DYK, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

LOURIE, Circuit Judge. 

Veterans Contracting Group, Inc., (“VCG”) appeals 

from a decision of the United States Court of Federal 

Claims (“the Claims Court”) holding that the Small 

Business Administration (“SBA”) did not act arbitrarily, 

capriciously, or contrary to the SBA’s regulations by 

applying the SBA’s requirement for unconditional servicedisabled veteran ownership of a small business in order to 

qualify for service-disabled veteran-owned small business 

(“SDVOSB”) set-aside contracts. Veterans Contracting 

Grp., Inc. v. United States, 135 Fed. Cl. 316, 330 (2017). 

The SBA applied the standard for unconditional 

ownership articulated in The Wexford Grp. Int’l, Inc., SBA 

No. SDV-105, 2006 WL 4726737 (June 29, 2006) 

(“Wexford”) to VCG and determined that VCG was not at 

least 51% unconditionally owned by a service-disabled 

veteran as required by 13 C.F.R. § 125.12, removed VCG

from SDVOSB eligibility, and disqualified VCG from

receiving a contract award from the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers (“the Corps”) set aside for SDVOSBs. We have 

appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3). We 

dismiss the appeal as moot. 

The appeal is moot because each of the remedies VCG 

originally requested is now beyond the power of this court 

to grant. See Calderon v. Moore, 518 U.S. 149, 150 (1996)

(holding that an appeal should be dismissed as moot when 

“a court of appeals cannot grant any effectual relief 
VETERANS CONTRACTING GROUP v. UNITED STATES 3

whatever”); North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 246

(1971) (“Mootness is a jurisdictional question because the 

Court is not empowered to decide moot questions or 

abstract propositions.”) (citations omitted). 

In its complaint, VCG sought: (1) an injunction 

ordering the Corps to award, or at least to consider 

awarding, the contract at issue to VCG; (2) a declaration 

restoring VCG’s SDVOSB eligibility; (3) a declaration that 

the SBA acted unreasonably and contrary to law and 

regulations when it applied Wexford and determined that 

VCG was ineligible for the SDVOSB program; and (4) fees 

and expenses of attorneys. We conclude that subsequent 

events have rendered the first two remedies moot, and the 

latter two are insufficient on their own to create an 

Article III case or controversy. 

VCG’s request for retroactive award of the contract at 

issue is moot because the government terminated the 

contract. See Durable Metal Prods., Inc. v. United States, 

No. 93-5090, 11 F.3d 1071 (Table) (Fed. Cir. 1993) (holding that a bid protestor’s request for an injunction was 

moot because the solicitation had been properly cancelled), and PRC Inc. v. Widnall, 64 F.3d 644, 645 (Fed. 

Cir. 1995); see also Coastal Envtl. Grp., Inc. v. United 

States, 114 Fed. Cl. 124, 131 (2013) (“[T]he Court of 

Federal Claims has consistently found that the cancellation of a procurement renders a protest of that procurement moot.”) (collecting cases).

VCG also argues that the SBA’s reliance on Wexford

to remove VCG from SDVOSB eligibility was erroneous,

and thus VCG should have its SDVOSB eligibility

restored. Since this appeal was taken, the SBA has 

promulgated new regulations that change the definition of 

the requisite unconditional ownership by a servicedisabled veteran, effectively overturning Wexford. See

Ownership and Control of Service-Disabled VeteranOwned Small Business Concerns, 83 Fed. Reg. 48,908 
4 VETERANS CONTRACTING GROUP v. UNITED STATES

(Oct. 1, 2018) (to be codified at 13 C.F.R. § 125). These 

regulations now govern VCG’s eligibility as an SDVOSB. 

As a result, VCG’s request for restoration of its SDVOSB 

eligibility under previous SBA regulations is moot. 

Neither of VCG’s two remaining requests, for 

declaratory relief and for fees and expenses of attorneys, 

prevents dismissal for mootness. A request for 

declaratory relief, in and of itself, is not sufficient to 

confer jurisdiction on an Article III court where there is 

no “substantial controversy, between parties having 

adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and 

reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory 

judgment.” Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 402 (1975). 

There is no Article III case or controversy where the case 

has become “an abstract dispute about the law, unlikely 

to affect [the party] any more than it affects other[s].” 

Alvarez v. Smith, 558 U.S. 87, 93 (2009). Whether the 

SBA acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or contrary to the 

SBA’s regulations by applying the now-defunct Wexford 

standard to define unconditional ownership does not 

affect VCG in any future procurement, and thus it is 

exactly the type of moot, abstract dispute excluded from 

our jurisdiction. 

VCG also asserted that its request for fees and 

expenses of attorneys —made at oral argument but not in 

either of its briefs—is sufficient to prevent dismissal for

mootness, but a free-standing claim for fees and expenses

of attorneys “is not a viable basis for avoiding mootness,” 

Totolo/King Joint Venture v. U.S., 431 F. App’x 895 (Fed. 

Cir. 2011). See Lewis v. Cont’l Bank Corp., 494 U.S. 472, 

480 (1990) (explaining that an “interest in attorney’s fees 

is, of course, insufficient to create an Article III case or 

controversy where none exists on the merits of the 

underlying claim”). VCG’s occasional requests for fees 

and expenses of attorneys do not grant this court 

jurisdiction to decide an otherwise moot case.
VETERANS CONTRACTING GROUP v. UNITED STATES 5

Accordingly, there is no Article III case or controversy

for this court to resolve, and we dismiss this appeal as 

moot. 

DISMISSED