UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 20-2146

EAST COAST REPAIR & FABRICATION, LLC,

Plaintiff – Appellant,

v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THROUGH THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, and its activity, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center,

Defendant – Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Arenda L. Wright Allen, District Judge. (2:20-cv-00057-AWA-DEM)

Argued: September 22, 2021 Decided: October 14, 2021

Before MOTZ and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee and Senior Judge Keenan joined.

ARGUED: Dustin Mitchell Paul, VANDEVENTER BLACK, LLP, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellant. Michael Anthony DiLauro, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

This case arises from a dispute between East Coast Repair and the United States over contracts for the repair of three Navy ships. East Coast seeks to recover $473,600 that the Government withheld from payment under one of these contracts. Because the parties’ settlement agreement precludes East Coast’s claims, we affirm the judgment of the district court rejecting these claims.

I.

East Coast, a ship repair company, contracted with the U.S. Navy to repair three ships: the USS Thunderbolt, the USS Tempest, and the USS Hurricane. Though East Coast brought this suit under the Hurricane contract, the Tempest contract is central to it. In 2013, the Navy claimed it was entitled to $474,600 in liquidated damages under the Tempest contract because East Coast delivered the Tempest late. Because the Navy had already paid all but $1,000 for East Coast’s work on the Tempest, it withheld a $473,600 setoff from payment to East Coast under the Hurricane contract.

East Coast claimed the Navy caused the complained-of delay in delivery and sent a letter to the government contracting officer disputing the Navy’s assessment of liquidated damages under the Tempest contract and requesting additional compensation for unanticipated work on the Tempest. In 2014, after the contracting officer denied that request, East Coast sued the United States under the Tempest contract in federal district court (the “Tempest suit”). In its complaint, East Coast referred specifically to the $473,600 setoff, stating that it “included those liquidated damages as part of its [request to

2 the government contracting officer] and as part of the calculation of the damages requested hereunder since they were assessed on the TEMPEST.”

In 2014, while the litigation proceeded, East Coast submitted to the contracting officer a request for additional compensation under the Hurricane contract for its assertedly unexpected work on that ship. After six months without response, East Coast appealed to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (the “Board”) and ultimately moved for summary judgment before the Board seeking payment of the $473,600 “withheld from payments due under [the Hurricane] contract.” For reasons unclear from the record, East Coast later withdrew the summary judgment motion.

East Coast and the Government settled the Tempest suit in 2017. In the settlement agreement, each party released the other from liability in broad, but not identical, terms. East Coast released the Government “from any and all actions, claims, . . . and liabilities of any type, whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, foreseen or unforeseen, or open or hidden, which have exis