Court Opinion

ID: 8589404
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-23 15:43:31.179351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:54:19.871284
License: Public Domain

Whitaker, Judge,
dissenting:
The majority say that plaintiff would be entitled to recover the sum of $7,787.12, except for the adverse ruling of the contracting officer and plaintiff’s failure to appeal there*776from. I think it is entitled to recover this amount and I do not think the ruling of the contracting officer bars it from doing so.
The work of repairing this broken main was not a part of the contract and, hence, is not governed by its terms. The provisions of article 15 have no application to the dispute as to who should pay for the cost of repairing it. This article gave to the contracting officer authority to decide only those disputes that arose under the contract. This work was not a part of the contract and, therefore, the dispute over who should pay for it does not arise under the contract.
The most that can be said is that this work was made necessary by the manner in which the contract was carried out. If the plaintiff was negligent in its performance and thereby broke the main and made necessary this work, it should pay for it; on the other hand, if the defendant was responsible for its breakage, then it should pay for the cost of its repair. This is a dispute over whether the plaintiff or the contracting officer was responsible for an act that caused damage to defendant’s property. I do not think the parties intended to leave to the contracting officer the settlement of such a dispute.
It is almost impossible for a party charged with wrongdoing to be wholly impartial in deciding whether or not it or the other party was guilty of the wrong. The breaking of this main was the fault of either the contracting officer or of the plaintiff. The contracting officer would be a most unusual man if he could decide, wholly without bias, whether he or the plaintiff was at fault. I do not think the plaintiff intended to give him such authority.
The Act of Congress establishing this court gave the plaintiff the right to come to it for a settlement of such a dispute. I cannot believe that when it agreed to article 15 of the contract the plaintiff meant to forego this right and give to the other party final and conclusive authority to decide such a dispute.
I do not believe the defendant intended to ask it to forego this right; nor do I believe that it had a right to do so. Can it be that an agent of the executive branch of the Government has a right to take away from a plaintiff a right *777given him by Congress? Has he the right to say, we will award you this contract only if you agree to forego this right Congress has given you of resorting to the Court of Claims for a redress of your grievances?
In Beuttas et al. v. United States, 101 C. Cls. 748 [reversed in part and affirmed in part, 324 U. S. 726], the issue was whether or not the defendant had paid plaintiffs all it had agreed to pay under the contract. The contracting officer decided it had. This was said to be final and conclusive. A majority of the court held that it was not. We said, upon the authority of a number of cases there cited, that an agreement made in advance of the controversy that deprived a party of recourse to a court having jurisdiction of the controversy, over whether or not the defendant had breached its contract by not paying all it had agreed to pay, is contrary to public policy and void. See pp. 767-770. The decision of the majority in the instant case is, I think, in direct contradiction to our holding in the Beuttas case. If the decision of the majority in that case was right, it is wrong in this. Also compare Lengevin v. United States, 100 C. Cls. 15.
I do not believe the contracting officer had the right to decide the dispute over whether he or the plaintiff was responsible for breaking this main. In my opinion his decision does not foreclose the plaintiff and it is entitled to recover.