A panel of federal appeals court judges heard oral arguments Thursday in a case with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line for Anchorage. The dispute stems fromThe particulars of the case deal with the intricacies of contract law and how damages are calculated. A federal trial court judgethat the federal Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration breached its contracts with the city by failing to fulfill its project oversight duties.
“We feel the oral arguments went great,” said Luke Patrick, a spokesperson for Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson’s office. “And we feel that thethat it wasn’t obligated by a 2003 agreement with the city to deliver a defect-free port structure. And, in a subsequent 2011 agreement having to do with how to manage claims against the contractors on the project, Maritime Administration argued it wasn’t obligated to pursue litigation on the city’s behalf.
“So our argument there is that the trial court simply misinterpreted the plain language of that clause, which says — ”“If you disagree with that,” Wisser continued, “then we have no other argument about the breach on that point.” Referring to trial court Judge Edward Damich’s opinion, Smith said, “There is not one single witness of the 24 who testified over the course of this trial who disagreed that MARAD had an obligation to design and deliver a port for the Municipality of Anchorage. Those are the witnesses offered by the municipality, and those are the witnesses that were offered by the government. They all said the exact same thing.