Here, with an excerpt on the plain English:
Plain English summary
Every contract is a deal between two parties, and both are supposed to perform their part of the deal. That means that, if the job covered by the contract is done as it should be, then that party is entitled to be paid what has been promised. This case involved Indian tribes that sued the government because it did not pay all of the costs it had promised to cover when the two sides made their deal for the tribe to provide education and other government-like functions for their members. The Court ruled that a promise is a promise, even if the government doesn’t have immediately available enough money to pay all of the contractors it had promised to pay for their services. Congress has to locate the money to cover such a promise, the Court said.
As co-counsel for the class in the Ramah case I want to suggest a correction to your brief comment on the case. That comment ended with the statement that “Congress has to come up with the money to cover such a promise [ the promise in ISDA that full contract support costneed will be paid], the Court said.” That comment is inaccurate. The money to pay the damages due to the ISDA contractors for unpaid CSC which the Court held the government was legally liable for is ( and always has been) already appropriated and available in the permanent and indefinite judgment fund–the source of money damage payments applicable to all Contract Disputes Act judgments. The next steps we will initiate in the case will be to address damage calculations for the 1994-2001 period ( the period at issue in the claims before the court) after remand–via trial or by motion practise or via settlement–and to address the subsequent claim years.
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