G. R. SMITH, Magistrate Judge.
CSX Transportation, Inc. (CSX) sued the United States in tort and contract based upon the U.S. Army's failure to secure several of CSX's rail cars that were looted by local thieves, causing substantial losses. Doc. 14. The government moved to dismiss, arguing that CSX's tort claim fails and that its contract claim can only be litigated in the Court of Federal Claims (CFC). Doc. 17. It also moved to stay all discovery pending a ruling on the dismissal motion. Doc. 25. This Court denied that stay motion, doc. 27, and the government now moves to reconsider.
The government sought the stay to "allow the parties to determine what cause of action will be litigated and in what court, and [thus] focus and narrow the scope of discovery." Doc. 25 at 2. But "there is no question," this Court concluded, "that the case will survive defendant's motion to dismiss in one forum or the other," so a discovery stay was not appropriate (for discovery will not be "wasted"). Doc. 27 at 2. Now the government insists that CSX could have filed its contract claim with the CFC, that this Court otherwise lacks jurisdiction to hear such a claim since it exceeds $10,000 in value, and that in any event CSX should go the CFC route, though it first must make a demand from the "contracting officer," doc. 31 at 3, for "which [CSX] may be paid, relieving the [government] and this Court of the burden of addressing this lawsuit further." Doc. 36 at 2.
Boiled down, the government insists that CSX must administratively exhaust its contract claim under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA), 41 U.S.C. § 7101 et seq., while CSX counters that the CDA applies only to procurement contracts, not the agreement at issue here. Doc. 34 at 3. And even were that the case, CSX further contends, its claim accrued in 2011, so it has years to travel the CDA route. Doc. 34 at 3; see also 41 U.S.C. § 7103(a)(4)(A) ("Each claim by a contractor against the Federal Government relating to a contract . . . shall be submitted within 6 years after the accrual of the claim."); Affiliated Construction Group, Inc. v. United States, 115 Fed. Cl. 607, 614 n. 8 (Fed. Cl. 2014) ("the CDA's statute of limitations is subject to tolling").
The discovery obtained here, if favorable, could help CSX obtain the relief it seeks without burdening the CFC with a new contract action. Hence, it most likely would not be wasted. More fundamentally, a "preliminary peak" at the motion to dismiss suggests that CSX's tort claims may survive.