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03-1566 ORFF V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 358 F3d 1137 CERT. GRANTED 10/12/2004 QUESTION PRESENTED: The question presented is whether farmers are "intended" third-party beneficiaries of their irrigation district's water service and repayment contracts with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and, therefore, entitled to sue the Bureau for breach thereof, as the Federal Circuit has long held, or merely "incidental" third-party beneficiaries and, therefore, not so entitled, as the Ninth Circuit holds in the decision below. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 00-16922
The U.S. Supreme Court case Francis A. Orff, et al. v. United States et al., 2004 revolved around a group of California farmers (Orff and others) who sued the federal government for breach of contract after they received less water than expected from a federally managed irrigation project due to the Endangered Species Act protections for certain fish species in the area. The farmers argued that they should be allowed to sue under a waiver of sovereign immunity found in the Reclamation Act of 1902, which governs such projects. However, the Supreme Court ruled against them by holding that these individual contractors did not fall within this specific waiver because it applies only when there is an express or implied contract with each contractor individually - something absent here as their contracts were with an intermediary water district rather than directly with the federal government itself. This ruling essentially meant that private individuals cannot sue the U.S Government over contractual disputes unless there's explicit permission given by Congress through legislation waiving its sovereign immunity rights.
In the dissenting opinion for Francis A. Orff, et al. v. United States et al., Justice Ginsburg disagreed with the majority's interpretation of a waiver provision in a federal statute that allows lawsuits against the U.S government under certain circumstances (28 U.S.C § 1500). She argued that this provision should not bar plaintiffs from pursuing their claims simultaneously in both district court and Court of Federal Claims as long as they are seeking different relief in each venue. According to her, barring such simultaneous suits would undermine Congress' intent to provide broad access to justice for claimants against the government by forcing them into an unfair choice between two courts with distinct advantages and disadvantages depending on their specific case facts and legal issues involved.