Government on Hook for 15-Year Damages For Nuclear Waste Disposal Contract Breach

The federal government may not invoke the “unavoidable delays” clause in its nuclear waste disposal contracts with nuclear utilities to avoid paying damages for its failure to accept, transport, and dispose of nuclear waste by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act’s Jan. 31, 1998, deadline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled April 2 (Entergy Nuclear FitzPatrick LLC v. United States, Fed. Cir., No. 2012-5059).

The court, in an opinion by Chief Judge Randall R. Rader, said that this was “the latest in a line of attempts by the government to raise the ‘unavoidable delays’ defense ...