GEN. RY. SIGNAL v. WASH. METRO. AREA TRANS. AUTH.

• Decision Date: 13 November 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 77-657.
• Parties: GENERAL RAILWAY SIGNAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

527 F. Supp. 359

GENERAL RAILWAY SIGNAL COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 77-657.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

November 13, 1979.

Stephen Kurzman, Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Lewis J. Baker, Asst. Atty. Gen., Leonard Petkoff, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

JOHN LEWIS SMITH, Jr., District Judge.

OPINION

Plaintiff, General Railway Signal Company (GRS), brings this action to set aside the administrative determination of defendant, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), that the Contracting Officer had not taken an unreasonable amount of time in processing GRS's two claims for extra work required by changes that WMATA ordered in its original contract. GRS filed its first request for payment of the double break circuitry claim on August 14, 1972, and completed the double break circuitry work in August of 1973. It filed its first request for payment of the call-on circuitry claim on July 14, 1972, and completed this work in December of 1973. The Corps of Engineers Board of Contract Appeals (Board) upheld these claims on August 30, 1976 and WMATA paid GRS on January 17, 1977. By Order of August 5, 1977, subsequently modified on March 28, 1978, this Court directed WMATA to pay plaintiff interest on the amount of the claims if upon remand to WMATA the claims processing period was found unreasonably lengthy. GRS demands interest from August 20 and December 13, 1973 to January 17, 1977, the first dates after the completion of each project on which GRS requested payment from WMATA, in the amount of $31,888.56, plus interest on that amount from January 17, 1977, to present.

Upon remand, WMATA's General Manager forwarded this matter to the Appeals Board for hearing and advisory opinion. The Board held an adversary hearing, took evidence, and considered briefs from both parties. The unanimous view of the Board was that

the time taken for consideration of the claim at the Resident Engineer and Contracting Officer level, while not unusual, especially in view of appellant's lack of assertive action pressing for an early decision, was much too long when all of the circumstances are considered. For that reason the question posed by the District Court must be answered in the affirmative. There was too much delay in processing the claims from which the appeals arose. General Railway Signal Co., Eng BCA 3560, 3638, 79-1 BCA ¶ 13,622. (Opinion of Administrative Judge Jellico).

Although the General Manager adopted the Board's findings of fact, he nevertheless decided that the Board's conclusion was contrary to applicable law. He therefore announced that the Contracting Officer had not taken an unreasonable amount of time and denied the award of interest. The case is before the Court on cross motions for summary judgment.

The Court finds as follows:

1. The defendant determined that upon remand this Court had set forth an erroneous standard when it ordered WMATA to determine whether or not the appeals process has been unreasonably lengthy. The proper standard, defendant argues, is set forth in John J. Wilson, Inc. v. Granite-Groves, No. 78-1498 (D.D.C. December 12, 1978), in which the Court asks whether an administrative remedy is inadequate or futile, not whether it is unreasonably lengthy.

Defendant rightly observes that the proper standard for this Court's review of administrative decisions depends upon whether the question presented concerns an issue of law or of fact. An administrative decision concerning a question of law does not carry the presumption of finality accorded a decision of a question of fact, and may be decided by the Court itself. 41 U.S.C. § 322. See, e.g., Crowder v. U. S., 255 F.Supp. 873 (D.C.Cal.1964), affirmed 362 F.2d 1011 (9th Cir. 1966). As a question of law, the Court today rules that its Order of August 5, 1977, established the proper standard for the remand and the appropriate question was whether or not the appeals period had been unreasonably lengthy.

In reviewing the determination of the agency that the period of review was not unreasonably lengthy, to the extent that this is a question of fact, the Court may set aside this finding if it is "capricious or arbitrary or so grossly erroneous as necessarily to imply bad faith,...