United States v. Joseph A. Holpuch Co.

The narrow question here is whether a contractor’s failure to exhaust the administrative appeal provisions of a government construction contract bars him from bringing suit in the Court of Claims to recover damages.

Respondent, a building contractor, entered into two contracts1 with the United States through the War Department in 1933 to construct officers’ quarters at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, which were being built as a Federal *236Emergency Administration of Public Works project. Disputes arose as to excavations for footings and as to increased wages ordered to be paid to respondent’s…