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Knowingly False Certification of Davis-Bacon Act Compliance Results in Treble Damages

Client Alert | 1 min read | 09.02.14

In U.S. ex rel. Wall v. Circle C Constr., LLC (Aug. 22, 2014), the district court was tasked with calculating damages after the prime contractor was found liable under the False Claims Act for falsely certifying that its subcontractor for electrical work on construction contract had paid proper wages under the Davis-Bacon Act. The district court held that (1) the proper measure of single damages is the amount the government paid the defendant for electrical work performed by the subcontractor, and not simply the amount of the underpayments to the subcontractor’s workers; (2) because the Army contract did not break out pricing for the electrical work, it is acceptable for the court to rely on an expert witness who estimated the amount paid to the defendant for the electrical work by consulting RS Means, a data compendium of construction costs used to generate construction project estimates; and (3) although not expressly addressed, there is no offset from the trebled damages for the value of the electrical services actually provided to the government.

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From ‘Second’ to ‘First:’ Federal Circuit Tackles Obvious Claim Errors

Patent claims must be clear and definite, as they set the boundaries of the patentee’s rights. Occasionally, however, claim language contains errors, such as typographical mistakes or incorrect numbering. Courts possess very limited authority to correct such errors. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has emphasized that judicial correction is appropriate only in rare circumstances, where (1) the error is evident from the face of the patent, and (2) the proposed correction is the sole reasonable interpretation in view of the claim language, specification, and prosecution history. See Group One, Ltd. v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 407 F.3d 1297, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) and Novo Indus., L.P. v. Micro Molds Corp., 350 F.3d 1348, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2003)....

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