Federal Circuit Mandates Full Lost Profits Award for Breach

In Rockies Express Pipeline LLC v. Salazar (Sept. 13, 2013), the Federal Circuit confirmed that, by backing out of its agreement to take for ten years a certain percentage volume of a pipeline to be constructed in part on federal land, Interior materially breached. The CBCA had cut off the duration of the pipeline's lost profits remedy, but the circuit court reversed because Interior could not limit its damages by its actions after the pipeline had canceled for breach.