Court Opinion

ID: 9656788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:01:10.784985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:36.129962
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge.
I dissent. My view of the case is set out in the opinion heretofore filed.
At the time the first change order was issued plaintiff had pending a request for a change in the specifications for future work and an additional payment for work already done. The change order was issued in response to this claim. It was a settlement of it. It lowered the specifications for future work, but made no allowance for work already done. Instead, it said that “all other terms and conditions of the contract should remain the same.” This I think constituted a denial of the claim for an additional payment for work already done.
The fact that the contracting officer and the head of the department did not raise this defense does not prove, in my opinion, what the majority says it proves, because the contracting officer who ruled on the claim after the work had been finished was a different person from the one who issued the change order. There is no showing that he knew what was in the mind of the contracting officer who issued the change order.
His failure to raise this defense is not a waiver of it. A Government officer has no right to waive a defense available to the Government except in the compromise of a claim. No compromise is involved here.