Department of the Army v. Blue Fox, Inc. (525 U.S. 255)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 20, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 525 U.S. 255 · 119 S. Ct. 687
- Decided
- January 20, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. An insolvent prime contractor failed to pay a subcontractor for work the latter completed on a construction project for the Department of the Army. The Department of the Army having required no Miller Act bond from the prime contractor, the subcontractor sought to collect directly from the Army by asserting an equitable lien on certain funds held by the Army. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that § 10(a) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. § 702, waived the Government’s immunity for the subcontractor’s claim. We hold that §702 did not nullify the long settled rule that sovereign immunity bars creditors from enforcing liens on Government property. Participating in a business development program for socially and economically disadvantaged firms run by the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Department of the Army contracted with Verdan Technology, Inc., in September 1993, to install a telephone switching system at an Army depot in Umatilla, Oregon. Verdan, in turn, employed respondent Blue Fox, Inc., as a subcontractor on the project to construct a concrete block building to house the telephone system and to install certain safety and support systems. Under the Miller Act, 40 U. S. C. §§270a-270d, a contractor that performs “construction, alteration, or repair of any public…
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