There’s “new.” And there’s “new to you.” And there’s “refurbished new.” And there’s “open box special new.” And there’s “floor display model new.” But when it comes to contract specifications requiring “new” equipment, one court looked to a dictionary to define it as “never used before” and “free of significant damage.”
In a recent case, Reliable Contracting Group, LLC v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 779 F.3d 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2015), the Government entered an agreement with the Contractor to install three back-up generators. The contract specifications required new equipment:
All equipment, material, and articles incorporated into the work covered by this contract shall be new and of the most suitable grade for the purpose intended, unless otherwise specifically provided in this contract.
A dispute arose over the nature of the equipment supplied because the contract did not define the word, “new.” Furthermore, Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.211-5, which was incorporated into the contract, requires that supplies “new, reconditioned, or remanufactured,” and it defined “new” to include that the supplies be “composed of previously unused components.”
Keep reading this article at: https://www.bestpracticesconstructionlaw.com/2015/06/articles/legal-trends/new-materials/
