Court Opinion

ID: 9450140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:36:27.465326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:10.010759
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring):
The Court holds that construing the contract, there was simply no promise, express or implied, on the part of the *781Government to furnish the needed materials at some time. It places reversal on the absence of any such promise and not upon the exemption-from-liability clause of § 52(b). It seems to reason also that this contractor’s losses were occasioned by prior misrepresentation which goes unrequited because it took place prior to memorializing the agreement.
I am in full agreement with the Court that it does no good to talk in terms of “negligent breach.” I would also eon-ceed that a contractor would have an uphill fight in overcoming the rather plain language of the exemption-from-liability clause of § 52(b),1 especially in view of the provisions imposing an enforceable obligation on the Government to extend the time of performance.
But I cannot possibly see how the Court can conclude that the Government did not promise to supply the needed materials at some time. It is true that the contract expressly stated, “The Government, however, does not warrant or guarantee any time or times for delivery of such property.” But to give that phrase literal application is to destroy the entire relationship created by the contract. It makes the whole arrangement meaningless. If there is any one thing clear in this multi-claused contract, it is that under no circumstances was the contractor authorized or permitted to procure the materials on its own. Hence, the work which the Government sought from the contractor, and the work which the contractor bound itself to perform, necessarily contemplated the Government’s furnishing the materials. That being so, the Government obviously had an obligation to supply the materials. Two other questions then would follow. The questions would be, first, when were they to be supplied? And second, assuming a failure to supply what relief would the contractor have?
The result is that, although the contract expressly states that the Government does not warrant delivery at “any time or times,” it again makes the whole arrangement meaningless unless the law from a consideration of the entire instrument and relationship reads into the Government’s clear obligation, the duty of furnishing the materials within a reasonable time. In that light, I think the emphasized sentence, see text, supra, is really a part of the exemption-from-liability clause. This would tend to make sense and would emphasize the sweeping intention in the so-called exculpatory language (see footnote 1) to rule out the possibility of any recovery by the contractor of damages or other payments in excess of the contractual consideration. This interpretation also accords with well-settled, general contract principles: “Neither a proper interpretation nor a just determination of legal eífects can be reached without giving due consideration to all the parts of a contract and all the steps in the transaction of which the contract is a part.” 3 Corbin, Contracts § 549, at 193 (rev. ed. 1960).

. Following the emphasized sentence, § 52(b) goes on to state:
“For any delay in delivery or failure to deliver any or all of the Government-furnished property, the Government shall not be liable to the Contractor for damages, loss of profits, or increased costs * * * ”