Summary
The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals denied Paragon Defense Solutions, Inc.’s motion for reconsideration of a decision holding that no completed purchase-and-sale contract arose because Paragon failed to deliver the ordered propeller shafts. The Board concluded that Paragon was improperly rearguing its case and attempting to characterize a previously described unilateral modification as bilateral at the reconsideration stage.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether reconsideration should be granted when the appellant merely reargues its prior case.
- Whether appellant could support reconsideration by changing its characterization of an unsigned modification from unilateral to bilateral.
Holdings
- A motion for reconsideration does not provide an opportunity for a second bite at the apple or to advance arguments that should have been presented earlier; because Paragon primarily reargued its prior case, reconsideration was denied.
- An appellant may not switch from characterizing a modification as unilateral to characterizing it as bilateral at the reconsideration stage to support a contract-formation argument, particularly where the appellant did not sign the modification.
Key quotations
“Motions for reconsideration do not afford litigants the opportunity to take a “second bite at the apple,” or to advance arguments that properly should have been presented in an earlier proceeding.”
“The reconsideration stage is too late for appellant to switch gears like that.”
Factual background
The government issued a unilateral purchase order for 118 propeller shafts, later modified by Modification No. 1, with delivery required by April 10, 2023. Paragon did not deliver the propeller shafts by that date or at all. In its original appeal, Paragon characterized Modification No. 1 as unilaterally issued by the government, but in its reconsideration motion it characterized the modification as bilateral even though it had not signed it.
Procedural history
The Board previously held that no completed purchase-and-sale contract for 118 propeller shafts came into existence because appellant failed to deliver them by the government's April 10, 2023 deadline, as modified by Modification No. 1, or at all. Appellant sought reconsideration and argued, contrary to its earlier characterization, that Modification No. 1 was bilateral. The Board denied reconsideration.