Feds' Spending On Lawsuits Up
From the National Law Journal
The federal government paid more than $3 billion last year to resolve lawsuits, almost twice as much as it did the year before, according to an analysis by The National Law Journal of hundreds of payment records.
The departments of Energy, Interior and Health and Human Services accounted for the largest share of expenditures. Those agencies spent a combined $2.35 billion to settle a series of long-running disputes that included government contracts litigation over health care programs run by Indian tribes.
And, while not a high dollar total, the government made payouts to former military employees let go under the since-reversed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
The payments were logged in the Judgment Fund, a Treasury Department database of money the feds use to satisfy court judgments or settle lawsuits. Created in 1956, the fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation, exempt from annual congressional approval. Its records are opaque. Payments are identified only by citation codes and agency file numbers that may or may not correspond to federal court case numbers. As in years past, the Energy Department spent the most on lawsuits in 2014, paying $929 million in taxpayer money. Most of the money went to nuclear power plants to settle breach-of-contract claims involving the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The agency has spent more than $4 billion on such claims during the past four years.
The federal government was supposed to begin storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in 1998. But the facility has not been completed — it's unclear if it ever will be — and the power plants have been stuck with the waste." Plaintiffs have honored all of their contractual obligations under the standard contracts. The government breached the standard contracts by failing to accept [spent nuclear fuel] for disposal as required," Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner Arnold Fagg wrote in a complaint on behalf of Progress Energy Inc. subsidiaries Carolina Power and Light Co. and Florida Power Corp. The company accepted a $90 million settlement last year.
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From the National Law Journal
The federal government paid more than $3 billion last year to resolve lawsuits, almost twice as much as it did the year before, according to an analysis by The National Law Journal of hundreds of payment records.
The departments of Energy, Interior and Health and Human Services accounted for the largest share of expenditures. Those agencies spent a combined $2.35 billion to settle a series of long-running disputes that included government contracts litigation over health care programs run by Indian tribes.
And, while not a high dollar total, the government made payouts to former military employees let go under the since-reversed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
The payments were logged in the Judgment Fund, a Treasury Department database of money the feds use to satisfy court judgments or settle lawsuits. Created in 1956, the fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation, exempt from annual congressional approval. Its records are opaque. Payments are identified only by citation codes and agency file numbers that may or may not correspond to federal court case numbers. As in years past, the Energy Department spent the most on lawsuits in 2014, paying $929 million in taxpayer money. Most of the money went to nuclear power plants to settle breach-of-contract claims involving the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The agency has spent more than $4 billion on such claims during the past four years.
The federal government was supposed to begin storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in 1998. But the facility has not been completed — it's unclear if it ever will be — and the power plants have been stuck with the waste." Plaintiffs have honored all of their contractual obligations under the standard contracts. The government breached the standard contracts by failing to accept [spent nuclear fuel] for disposal as required," Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner Arnold Fagg wrote in a complaint on behalf of Progress Energy Inc. subsidiaries Carolina Power and Light Co. and Florida Power Corp. The company accepted a $90 million settlement last year.
Read more in our daily News Update...