Opinion ID: 537469
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiff's Election of the Contract Disputes Act

Text: 14 The district court held that Walber's remaining claims involved interpretation of the contracts entered into with HUD; that Walber had elected to pursue her rights under these contracts via the CDA; and, therefore, that the court had no subject matter jurisdiction over these claims. To understand this ruling, we must examine the place of the CDA in resolving disputes over government contracts. 15 Under the CDA, Congress provided a comprehensive statutory system of legal and administrative remedies to resolve claims and disputes relating to government contracts. The CDA provides that all contractual claims against a United States government agency must first be submitted to a contracting officer for a decision. 41 U.S.C. Sec. 605(a). This decision may then be appealed to either the Board of Contract Appeals of the particular agency, 41 U.S.C. Sec. 606, or directly to the United States Claims Court, 41 U.S.C. Sec. 609(a)(1). Appellate review of a Board of Contract Appeals or Claims Court decision is vested exclusively in the Federal Circuit. 41 U.S.C. Sec. 607(g)(1)(A). Section 14(a) of the CDA amended 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2) to explicitly exclude district court jurisdiction over any civil action or claim against the United States founded upon any express or implied contract with the United States ... subject to sections 8(g)(1) and 10(a)(1) of the [CDA]. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(a)(2). Federal district courts, therefore, have no jurisdiction to hear claims brought under the CDA procedures. See Management Science America, Inc. v. United States, 598 F.Supp. 223, 225 (N.D.Ga.1984), aff'd, 778 F.2d 792 (1985). 16 The CDA provides that contractors, such as Walber, whose claims were not decided by an agency contracting officer as of March 1, 1979, the effective date of the CDA, have the right to elect to have their contract disputes resolved under the provisions of the CDA or to continue to follow pre-CDA procedures. See 41 U.S.C. Sec. 601 note. 17 Under the pre-CDA procedures, contractors were obliged to exhaust their administrative remedies under the contract whenever the contract had a remediable clause, such as a disputes or changes clause, before receiving judicial review under the Wunderlich Act's arbitrary and capricious standards. 41 U.S.C. Sec. 321. Where the contractor's claim was for breach of contract, .e., a claim outside the remediable clause of the contract, the contractor could file a breach claim directly in federal district court. See Paragon Energy Corp. v. United States, 645 F.2d 966, 972-75 (Ct.Cl.1981). 18 Walber, because all of her claims to the HUD contracting officer were pending on or initiated after March 1, 1979, had the right to elect either CDA or pre-CDA procedures. In determining whether a contractor has elected to proceed under the CDA, the Federal Circuit has noted that, because [t]here is no statutory or regulatory provision detailing the way in which [an] election is to be made, so the only real requirement is that the election be informed and voluntary. Essex Electro Engineers, Inc. v. United States, 702 F.2d 998, 1003 (Fed.Cir.1983) (footnote omitted). An election will be considered informed, according to the Federal Circuit, where the plaintiff has been furnished sufficient information to make a straightforward and conscious election whether to invoke the act. Tuttle/White Constructors, Inc. v. United States, 656 F.2d 644, 648 (Ct.Cl.1981); see also Massman v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 769 F.2d 1114, 1119 (6th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1104 (1986) (citing Federal Circuit cases for the proposition that the contractor must make a 'knowing election' before waiving its rights under the Act.); S.E.R., Jobs for Progress, Inc. v. United States, 759 F.2d 1, 3 (Fed.Cir.1985). We see no reason to depart from these principles in our analysis of the case at bar. 19 There is no doubt that Walber took advantage of the CDA (1) by proceeding with the breach of contract claims before the HUDBCA for which the latter had jurisdiction only under the CDA and (2) by seeking interest on her claim according to CDA procedures. The only dispute concerns whether Walber proceeded in an informed and voluntary manner. 20 The record substantially supports the district court's factual findings that plaintiff knowingly elected to proceed under the CDA. The government had argued in a HUDBCA proceeding that Walber had not made a timely election. Thus, as early as September 1979, the government had put Walber on notice that she had the right to elect whether to proceed under the CDA. In fact, Walber admitted that throughout the hearings before HUDBCA she had been told it is the contractor who elects. Although she claims that she never knew what to elect, (App. 392-93), the district court found that Walber intimately and personally involved herself in each and every stage of the proceedings, and that she was very erudite and knowledgeable about everything that was going on. (App. 398-99). Given this degree of understanding, taken together with reference after reference to the election procedure that the district court found on the record, (App. 399), we cannot question the substantial basis for the district court's conclusion that Walber voluntarily elected to proceed under the CDA. The district court was therefore correct in deciding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider plaintiff's contract claims. 21 AFFIRMED.