Opinion ID: 805808
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government’s Jurisdictional Argument

Text: Whether the Government was substantially justified in its jurisdictional argument presents a considerably closer call, and if it were the primary issue in this case the Government might well lose on that call. Lawyers for the Department of Justice will sometimes lard their briefs on appeal with thinly-grounded jurisdictional objections to this court (or the trial forum) considering the particular appeal on its merits. If successful, it avoids the Government having to address the merits of the cause; however, such jurisdictional dodges are not always well grounded, and thus not always, or even often, successful. Here, the Government argued that the Court of Federal Claims lacked jurisdiction over DGR’s bid protest because DGR did not file suit until after the closing date for receipt of proposals. DGR, 97 Fed. Cl. at 218. Though the argument is fundamentally counterintuitive since court suits usually follow the conclusion of administrative action rather than precede it, the Government supported its argument with some language from an earlier opinion of this court in Blue & Gold Fleet L.P. v. United States, 492 F.3d 1308, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2007): DGR ASSOCIATES v. US 14 [A] party who has the opportunity to object to the terms of a government solicitation containing a patent error and fails to do so prior to the close of the bidding process waives its ability to raise the same objection subsequently in a bid protest ac- tion in the Court of Federal Claims. The Court of Federal Claims summarily rejected the Government’s position, noting that to do otherwise “would have parties running into the Court of Federal Claims to challenge solicitation errors, instead of pursuing other [administratively] available avenues.” DGR, 97 Fed. Cl. at 218. To avoid such an outcome, the court held that: The correct interpretation of Blue & Gold Fleet is that, if a party has challenged a solicitation im- propriety before the close of the bidding process, the party is not precluded from later filing its protest at the Court of Federal Claims. A party must do something before the closing date to preserve its rights, and must thereafter pursue its position in a timely manner. Id. On appeal, the Government urges that its jurisdictional argument was substantially justified because Blue & Gold Fleet inferentially tied the waiver rule to the Court of Federal Claims’ statutory grant of jurisdiction, thereby implying that the rule was jurisdictionally preclusive. But we agree with the Court of Federal Claims that the Government’s jurisdictional argument has little merit. In Blue & Gold Fleet the point made is straightfor- ward—if there is a patent, i.e., clear, error in a solicitation known to the bidder, the bidder cannot lie in the weeds hoping to get the contract, and then if it does not, blind15 DGR ASSOCIATES v. US side the agency about the error in a court suit. The trial court aptly noted that reading more into the statement such as the Government was doing would be inconsistent with the principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies. In the briefs and argument before this court the jurisdictional issue was a minor part of both the Government’s case and DGR’s response—in their principal briefs the Government devoted three pages to it (pp. 42-44), and DGR four (pp. 15-18); the focus was on the merits case. By itself, it is questionable whether we would hold the Government’s jurisdictional argument in this case substantially justified. When viewed in the overall context, as we are required to do, see Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 161-62 (1990) (“While the parties’ postures on individual matters may be more or less justified, the EAJA—like other feeshifting statutes—favors treating a case as an inclusive whole, rather than as atomized line-items”), we conclude that the Government’s position in this case was “justified to a degree that could satisfy a reasonable person,” which is all the Supreme Court and this court require. Pierce, 487 U.S. at 565; White v. Nicholson, 412 F.3d 1314, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Beyond that, “a position can be justified even though it is not correct, and . . . it can be substantially (i.e., for the most part) justified if a reasonable person could think it correct . . . .” Pierce, 487 U.S. at 566 n.2. In this case, the Government has in its favor at least one reasonable mind that had come to the same view as the Government regarding our statement in Blue & Gold Fleet. See Easterhill Boat Serv. Corp. v. United States, 91 Fed. Cl. 483, 487 (2010) (“The appeals court [in Blue & Gold Fleet] could have allowed contractors to file agency-level protests to preserve their pre-award claims, or to object in a manner other than by filing suit in federal court. Instead, DGR ASSOCIATES v. US 16 the court ruled that a contractor wishing to object to terms of a solicitation must file suit in the Court of Federal Claims before the bidding process ends, or not at all.”). Viewing the Government’s conduct in this case in its entirety, we are persuaded that the Court of Federal Claims abused its discretion when it concluded that the Government’s position was not substantially justified. During the agency stage of these proceedings, the Air Force was bound by law to follow the SBA’s parity regulations. And during the subsequent litigation the Government was justified in defending the Air Force’s actions in view of the genuine dispute among all three branches of the Government over whether the Act prioritized the HUBZone program over the 8(a) program. Though the Government’s jurisdictional argument may have been less defensible than its merits-based argument and would have been better omitted, we conclude that as a whole the Government’s basis for litigating its case was substantially justified. The question before us is not whether DGR had a reasonable case to bring, or even whether the Government’s position on the law proved to be correct. It is whether the Government was substantially justified in pursuing its overall view of the case in light of the then-state of the law. We think it was, and the EAJA provides for fee- shifting only when it was not.