CBCA 7195

DENIED IN PART; DISMISSED IN PART FOR LACK OF JURISDICTION: April 13, 2022 CBCA 7195, 7211 HEROES HIRE LLC, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent. Jessica House, Chief Executive Officer of Heroes Hire LLC, Loganville, GA, appearing for Appellant. Kathleen Ellis-Ramos, Office of General Counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs, Arlington, TX, counsel for Respondent. Before Board Judges BEARDSLEY (Chair), LESTER, and KULLBERG. LESTER, Board Judge. In these appeals,1 appellant, Heroes Hire LLC (Heroes Hire), challenges a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contracting officer’s decision terminating for cause Heroes Hire’s contract for nursing services. The VA has filed a motion seeking summary judgment in its favor and asking the Board to uphold the termination. In response, Heroes Hire expresses 1 Both CBCA 7195, which was filed on August 20, 2021, and CBCA 7211, which was filed on September 13, 2021, challenge the same contracting officer’s decision, dated August 19, 2021, terminating the contract at issue for cause. We elected to consolidate the two appeals rather than require briefing on the necessity of the second appeal. CBCA 7195, 7211 2 its disappointment in having been “taken advantage of by [the VA] and a ‘third party’” – a lender to which Heroes Hire assigned its contract payments – that Heroes Hire alleges the VA should not have recognized as a valid assignee. Appellant’s Response to Respondent’s Summary Judgment Motion at 1. Although Heroes Hire argues that both the VA and the Board have failed to protect it against a predatory lender and that the VA should have paid contract proceeds directly to Heroes Hire despite the assignment, Heroes Hire ignores the precarious position into which it placed the VA by demanding direct payment after telling the VA incorrectly that the VA could ignore the assignment. It was Heroes Hire that entered into a contractual relationship with a lender that it now views as predatory, and it was Heroes Hire that signed an assignment of all contract proceeds to that lender. When the VA, in response to Heroes Hire’s and the lender’s competing demands for direct payment, stated that it could not ignore the assignment, Heroes Hire improperly refused to perform any more work under the contract. Had the VA acquiesced in Heroes Hire’s demand, the VA needlessly would have faced duplicative liability to Heroes Hire’s lender, which had a vested interest in Heroes Hire’s contract proceeds, and Heroes Hire’s refusal to continue performance was a breach of its contract obligations. In such circumstances, the VA’s termination of Heroes Hire’s contract for cause was proper, and we deny Heroes Hire’s challenge to that termination. We also dismiss for lack of jurisdiction Heroes Hire’s monetary requests. Statement of Uncontested Facts The Contract On April 21, 2021, the VA awarded contract no. 36C25221C0064 (the contract), a fixed-price contract in the amount of $184,320, to Heroes Hire for the provision of technical support, management, and labor to fulfill the need for Community Care Registered Nurse (RN) services at the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The contract expressly stated that the immediate need for nursing services resulted from increased care needs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The contract period of performance was from April 21 to September 30, 2021. Appeal File, Respondent’s Exhibit 1 at 3.2 2 Unless otherwise noted, all exhibits referenced in this decision are contained in the appeal file. We identify each exhibit as “Respondent’s Exhibit” or “Appellant’s Exhibit,” referencing the party that filed it, to differentiate between duplicate exhibit numbers. CBCA 7195, 7211 3 The contract required three RNs “to provide services [at the medical center] 8-hours per day, Monday through Friday,” and indicated that “[o]vertime and work on a federal holiday may be requested.” Respondent’s Exhibit 1 at 3. The contract’s price schedule identified three RNs by name who were to provide the RN services under the contract for a collective total of 2280 regular hours and 528 overtime and holiday hours. Id.