Motion to consolidate appeals is granted. The contractor had a GSA schedule contract. It filed the same claim with both GSA and the purchasing agency. When the claim was denied, the contractor filed two appeals, one for each agency. The agencies moved to dismiss one of the appeals, alleging that the board could only have jurisdiction over one claim. The contractor moved to consolidate the appeals. The board granted the request to consolidate. Although the two appeals raised a jurisdictional issue concerning which agency was the proper respondent, the board reasoned it could defer ruling on that jurisdictional issue until it decided the merits of the claim at issue in both appeals.
CSI sold air transportation to federal agencies under a GSA schedule contract. CSI got into a dispute with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the pricing of some charter flights. CSI submitted a claim to the ICE contracting officer. It also submitted a claim to the GSA contracting officer who managed the schedule contract. The ICE CO denied the claim, finding that CSI’s prices for the charter flights did not follow the schedule contract. The GSA CO never responded to CSI’s claim.
CSI appealed he denial of its ICE claim to the CBCA. It also filed a second appeal from what the company deemed to be a denial of the GSA claim. Thus, GSA and ICE’s parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security, were both respondents in separate appeals involving the same claim. The parties filed a bunch of motions. Ultimately, the agencies wanted the board to dismiss the GSA appeal and proceed on the DHS appeal. CSI asked the board to consolidate appeals, proceed on the GSA appeal, and stay the DHA appeal as a “protective appeal.”
The board noted that the situation raised a jurisdictional issue concerning which agency was the proper respondent for the appeal. Nevertheless, the board found that where a contractor files two appeals in a dispute involving a schedule order, it would defer ruling on jurisdiction until it could say for sure that the dispute required interpretation of the schedule contract.
The board reasoned the it had jurisdiction over one of these appeals. And, in the big picture, the case involved a contract claim against the United States, which acted through two agencies. The ministerial practice of docketing appeals naming agencies as respondents does not affect the underlying government contract. Whether the CDA claim went to the right contracting officer was an important issue, but it was not urgent to decide it when both agencies were before the board and both had received the claim.
The board noted that under Federal Circuit precedent, a claim must go to GSA if it involves the interpretation of a schedule contract. But whether the schedule contract governed went to the merits of the appeal. Thus, the jurisdiction question was intertwined with the merits question. It made sense, therefore, to simply defer ruling on the jurisdictional issue until the board had resolved the merits issue.
GSA argued that it could not have been deemed to have denied CSI’s claim because it would not have had authority to issue a final decision in a claim that ICE already addressed. But the board reasoned that this argument begged the question, assuming that the ICE CO had the authority to act.
Ultimately, the board reasoned that it seeks the just, informal, expeditious, and inexpensive resolution of every case. For these reasons, the board found that proceeding in the consolidated case, with both agencies, would be in keeping with its mission. The board thus granted CSI’s motion to consolidate. It denied the agencies’ request to dismiss one of the appeals, and denied CSI’s request to stay one of the appeals.
CSI is represented by Jason N. Workmaster, Abigail T. Stokes, and Caroline J. Watson of Miller & Chevalier Chartered. DHS is represented by Cassandra A. Maximous. GSA is represented by Sarah E. Park.