Court Opinion

ID: 9483422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:20:10.270924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:37.456523
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
One of the clauses in the contract between the United States and Olin relates to “allowable cost and payment.” See Contract Part II — Section I, 11 2, clause 14 (incorporating Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) 52.215-7 (APR 1984)). The contract incorporates FAR 32.205-41 by reference, which provides in pertinent part:
(a) The following types of costs are allowable:
(1) Federal, State, and local taxes (see part 29), except as otherwise provided in paragraph (b) below that are required to be and are paid or accrued in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
(b) The following types of costs are not allowable:
(3) Taxes from which exemptions are available to the contractor directly, or available to the contractor based on an exemption afforded the Government.... The term Exemption means freedom from taxation in whole or in part and includes a tax abatement or reduction resulting from mode of assessment, method of calculation, or otherwise,
(emphasis added). Therefore, assuming that Olin initially was exempt from paying the taxes at issue as the government now contends, such taxes paid by Olin to the State of Missouri were not reimbursable or “allowable” costs under the contract.1 If no contractual agreement bound the United *517States to reimburse Olin for the taxes, then the United States has no basis on which to establish direct injury resulting from the actions of the State of Missouri, i.e. standing, in this suit. I, therefore, find the decision of the district court to be in error.
The majority raises the issue of standing as one of the two procedural claims that warrants discussion, but it does not directly address the issue in its analysis. Further, it does not acknowledge the error in the district court’s reasoning with regard to standing. The district court adhered to its earlier finding, published at 729 F.Supp. 671, (W.D.Mo.1990), that the United States had properly established standing. That finding reads in pertinent part:
[The United States] counters that it has suffered a direct pecuniary injury as a result of the imposition of Missouri sales and use taxes on Olin, because “[a]ny sales and use taxes assessed or imposed under Missouri law on Olin in its performance of the Contract have in the past and would be in the future paid from the funds of the United States in accordance with the provisions of the Contract.” Plaintiffs Complaint § 15. The contract requires the federal government to reimburse Olin for all purchases of tangible personal property made pursuant to the contract.
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The Court finds that the United States has alleged actual direct pecuniary injury resulting from its obligation to reimburse Olin for purchases of personal property made pursuant to the contract.... Accordingly, the Court finds that the United States has standing to assert jurisdiction and is a proper party to bring this action.
United States v. Benton, 729 F.Supp. 671, 673 (W.D.Mo.1990) (emphasis added). In sum, the district court found that standing was established based on the government's contractual obligation to reimburse Olin. As explained above, however, the government was under no contractual obligation to reimburse Olin for those disbursements if Olin was initially exempt from paying those taxes.2 Thus, absent a contractual obligation to Olin, in my view the government has no basis on which to establish standing. That the government may have erroneously allowed and repaid the taxes does not, in my view, give the United States standing to correct the situation by seeking a refund directly from the State of Missouri.3
In addition, the cases on which the district court relied are distinguishable from the instant case. See United States v. DeKalb County, 729 F.2d 738 (11th Cir.1984); and United States v. Virginia, 500 F.Supp. 729 (E.D.Va.1980).4 Those cases *518involved suits by the United States to recover taxes from state government, which taxes were paid by the United States indirectly through reimbursement pursuant to contractual obligations. In each case, the court found that the United States had standing to sue based on its contractual obligation to pay the taxes. DeKalb, 729 F.2d at 740 (the contract provided that the U.S. “would be responsible for all property taxes assessed against Bankers Life in connection with the property during the aforementioned term.”); Virginia, 500 F.Supp. at 731 (“[T]he United States has a direct interest in this controversy because of its obligations under its cost-reimbursement contract.”). In the case at bar, the United States was under no such contractual obligation, assuming that Olin is directly exempt from the taxes at issue. Therefore, the cases relied on by the district court are inapposite.
Under this suggested rationale, I find it immaterial that, as stated by the majority, “under the contract between Olin and the United States, the government is required to reimburse Olin for its purchases.” (emphasis added). That may be so, but the government is not contractually required to reimburse Olin for sales and use taxes mistakenly paid by Olin on those purchases.
I need not consider the applicability of the Tax Injunction Act in the absence of standing. Also, in the absence of standing, I need not reach the prejudgment interest issue.
I would reverse and respectfully dissent.

. It is fairly clear that the United States claims that it is exempt from taxation because the goods sold to Olin were not "sales at retail” under Mo.Rev.Stat. § 144.020.1 (1986). The government does not claim that the tax imposed in this case was unconstitutionally discriminatory or unconstitutional as applied. The tangled issue of whether sovereign immunity extends to contractors who supply the government is, therefore, not reached in this case. For a discussion of that difficult issue, see United States v. New Mexico, 455 U.S. 720, 102 S.Ct. 1373, 71 L.Ed.2d 580 (1981).

.The United States bases its substantive claim on the theory that Olin was exempt from paying the sales and use taxes in the first instance. If Olin were exempt as the government contends, I would conclude that the United States is procedurally barred from bringing this suit for lack of standing because it had no contractual obligation to reimburse Olin for those payments. If Olin were not initially exempt from paying those taxes, then the United States would fail on the merits of its claim. In reaching my ultimate conclusion, I assume, without deciding, that Olin was exempt from paying the taxes at issue.
If I were to reach the merits of the government’s claim, however, I would agree with the majority that under these particular circumstances, there was a resale of personal property from Olin to the United States. See Canteen Corporation v. Goldberg, 592 S.W.2d 754 (Mo. 1980). It is noteworthy that Canteen Corporation, who occupied the analogous position of Olin in this case, sued for the refund in that controversy.

. The United States might appropriately seek a refund from Olin, but Olin is the proper party to seek recourse, at its own expense, from the State of Missouri. As a practical and public policy matter, this conclusion reaches the better result. In freeing the United States from paying taxes from which Olin is exempt, the contract implicitly places the burden on Olin to recover any taxes that it might erroneously pay to the state. If the government could proceed as the plaintiff in suits such as this, there would be no incentive for federal contractors in Olin’s position to challenge the taxes. Certainly this result was not intended by the contract.

. The court also cited United States v. Nevada Tax Comm'n, 439 F.2d 435 (9th Cir.1971), but that case is inapplicable here. In Nevada Tax Comm'n, the United States was asserting its sovereign immunity from state taxation. The court held that the United States had standing because " ‘[t]he action ... is essentially to establish the right of the [U.S.] and those with whom it deals to be relieved from an unconstitutionally dis*518criminatory tax and to assert the constitutional immunity of the [U.S.] from taxation by the state.’” Nevada Tax Comm'n, 439 F.2d at 438-439 (quoting United States v. Bureau of Revenue of New Mexico, 291 F.2d 677, 678-679 (10th Cir.1961); see also Marquardt Corp. v. Weber County, 360 F.2d 168 (10th Cir.1966) (when United States claimed sovereign immunity, court found that "upon payment of the tax pursuant to its contractual obligation, the government became the real party in interest_ see generally supra note 1.