Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter

Contracts: with Federal Government: The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA) directs the Secretary of the Interior to enter into contracts with will­ing tribes under which they will provide services such as education and law enforcement that the Federal Government otherwise would have provided. It requires the Secretary to contract to pay the “full amount” of “contract support costs,” 45 U. S. C. §§450j–1(a)(2), (g), subject to the availability of appropriations, §450j–1(b). In the event of a contractual breach, tribal contractors are entitled to seek money damages under the Contract Disputes Act. In Fiscal Years (FYs) 1994 to 2001, respondent Tribes contracted with the Secretary to provide services. During each of those FYs, Congress appropriated sufficient funds to pay any individual tribal contractor’s contract support costs in full but did not appropriate enough to pay all tribal contractors collectively. Unable to pay every contractor in full, the Secretary paid the Tribes on a uniform, pro rata basis. Respondents sued under the Contract Disputes Act for breach of contract. The District Court granted the Government summary judgment. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding the Gov­ernment liable to each contractor for the full contract amount.

Held: The Government must pay each Tribe’s contract support costs in full; that conclusion followed directly from well-established principles of Government contracting law: when a Government contractor is one of several persons to be paid out of a larger appropriation suffi­cient in itself to pay the contractor, the Government is responsible to the contractor for the full amount due under the contract, even if the agency exhausts the appropriation in service of other permissible ends. See Ferris v. United States, 27 Ct. Cl. 542, 546. That is so “even if an agency’s total lump-sum appropriation is insufficient to pay all” of its contracts. Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 637. This principle safeguards both the expectations of Government contractors and the long-term fiscal interests of the United States. Contractors need not keep track of agencies’ shifting priorities and competing ob­ligations; rather, they may trust that the Government will honor its contractual promises. And the rule furthers “the Government’s own long-run interest as a reliable contracting partner in the myriad workaday transaction of its agencies.” United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U. S. 839, 883; the principles underlying Cherokee Nation and Ferris control here. Once “Congress has appropriated sufficient legally unrestricted funds to pay the contracts at issue, the Government normally cannot back out of a promise on grounds of ‘insufficient appropriations,’ even if the contract uses language such as ‘subject to the availability of appropriations,’ and even if an agency’s total lump-sum appropriation is insufficient to pay all the contracts the agency has made.” Chero­kee Nation, 543 U. S., at 637. That condition is satisfied here, be­cause Congress made sufficient funds available to pay any individual contractor in full; but ISDA expressly provides that tribal contractors may sue for “money dam­ages” under the Contract Disputes Act, and any ensuing judgments are payable from the Judgment Fund. See Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 642; this case involves several con­tractors, each of whom contracted within the lump-sum amount Con­gress appropriated for all contractors; this case is the product of two decisions in some tension: Con­gress required the Secretary to accept every qualifying ISDA con­tract, promising “full” funding for all contract support costs, but then appropriated insufficient funds to pay in full each tribal contractor. Responsibility for the resolution of that situation, however, is com­mitted to Congress (18.06.12, Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, J. Sotomayor).

Contrats : avec le gouvernement fédéral : application de la loi fédérale sur l’assistance à l’autodétermination et à l’éducation en faveur des Tribus indiennes. Cette loi contraint le Secrétaire du Département de l’Intérieur à passer contrat avec des Tribus qui le demandent, contrats qui accordent aux Tribus divers services tels que l’éducation et les forces de l’ordre, pour autant que ces services soient accordés à la population non tribale. Ces contrats doivent prévoir que l’entier des coûts des services précités est à charge du gouvernement, à la condition toutefois que le gouvernement dispose à cet égard d’un poste à son budget pour l’ensemble de ces coûts. En cas de violation contractuelle, le partenaire de la Tribu peut agir en dommages-intérêts. Durant les années fiscales 1994 à 2001, le Congrès n’a pas prévu de moyens suffisants pour financer l’intervention de tous les partenaires contractuels. Etant dans l’incapacité de payer en totalité le travail de chaque partenaire, le Secrétaire a payé aux Tribus une partie seulement des coûts, au prorata. La Cour juge que le gouvernement doit payer l’intégralité de ces coûts. Cette conclusion découle directement des principes bien établis du droit des contrats passés avec le gouvernement. En effet, soit un partenaire contractuel du gouvernement, créancier dudit gouvernement. Ce créancier est un créancier parmi d’autres. Le gouvernement a prélevé une partie des recettes fiscales pour défrayer l’ensemble de ces créanciers. Il s’avère par la suite que la somme prélevée est insuffisante à régler l’ensemble de ces créanciers. Elle suffit toutefois à payer en entier la créance de l’un des créanciers qui demande paiement. Le droit contractuel impose alors au gouvernement de régler en totalité la somme due à ce créancier-là. Cette solution s’impose même si la somme au budget ne permet pas de payer intégralement tous les créanciers. C’est au Congrès qu’incombe la responsabilité de ne pas avoir prélevé fiscalement une somme suffisante dédiée aux paiements de ce type de créanciers. Cette solution permet de maintenir la fiabilité des contrats passés avec le gouvernement.