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Case Summaries

Government Contracts

[09/01] US ex rel. SNAPP v. Ford Motor Co.
District court's denial of plaintiff's motion to file a second amended complaint concluding that the proposed amended complaint, which included a list of contracts that the government allegedly entered into as a result of fraudulent representations on the part of Ford, did not allege with sufficient particularity the existence of a "claim" as defined by the False Claims Act (FCA), is affirmed as, because no holding of Bledsoe II affected the circuit's law on the questions at issue before the district court, the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that its original rationale for not permitting plaintiff to file its second amended complaint pursuant to Rule 59(e) still obtained and that permitting such a filing was not otherwise "required in order to prevent an injustice."

[08/31] Great W. Contractors, Inc. v. Irvine Unified Sch. Dist.
In plaintiff-contractor's suit against a school district (District), challenging the District's rejection of plaintiff's bid to remodel two elementary schools, trial court's judgment in favor of the District is reversed where: 1) trial court was incorrect in rejecting plaintiff's lowest bid as nonresponsive as, under D.H. Williams, 146 Cal.App.4th 757 (2007), a public agency cannot reject the bid of the lowest bidder on a public works project on the theory that the bid is nonresponsive to the agency's request for bids when, in substance, the real reason for the rejection is that the agency thinks the lowest bidder is "not responsible" - at least not without giving the lowest bidder the chance for a hearing on whether the lowest bidder really is "not responsible"; and 2) the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting plaintiff's admittedly belated request to amend.

[08/27] Kirby Lake Dev., Ltd. v. Clear Lake City Water Auth.
In developers' suit against a water authority for inverse condemnation, the judgment of the court of appeals in favor of the water authority is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the authority's refusal to include a reimbursement measure in every bond election constituted a breach of its contracts with the developers; 2) because the Legislature has waived the authority's immunity from suit for this breach, the court of appeals' judgment is reversed and remanded to consider authority's remaining issues; and 3) court of appeals' judgment that the authority's actions did not rise to the level of a taking is affirmed.

[08/24] Schram Constr., Inc. v. Regents of the Univ. of California
Trial court's denial of plaintiff's petition for a writ of mandate challenging a decision by a general contractor and University Regents, awarding a contract to another subcontractor is reversed where: 1) the contract with the subcontractor must be set aside, as the University's violations of the competitive bidding statutes were not merely "technical or nonsubstantive," and they undermined the goal of stimulating competition in a manner conducive to sound fiscal practices and compromised the integrity of the selection process by failing to ensure procedural and substantive fairness; and 2) University did not violate section 1056.7 in awarding a contract on one of the alternative combination packages to the subcontractor.

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