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Federal Market Intelligence for Small Business |
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Court rules on AbilityOne vs. SDVOSBRecent law to balance preferences for AbilityOne and vets tested in courtA Court of Federal Claims judge has ruled in favor of a veteran-owned firm in a case involving a recently-passed law that aimed at maintaining preferences for AbilityOne contractors employing disabled people at the Veterans Affairs Dept. Congress approved the law known as the “VA Consistency Act” in August 2020. It is one of several laws affecting VA preferences for veterans and for AbilityOne. The goal of the consistency act was to protect, at the VA, preferences that Congress had established for AbilityOne non-profits more than 80 years ago, while also protecting veteran-owned contractors’ top priority preferences under a 2006 law. The new law specifically maintains AbilityOne preferences that existed prior to 2006, before the veteran preferences were created. The consistency law was inspired by a 2018 Federal Circuit court decision that said the veterans preference at VA overruled AbilityOne. The consistency law was meant to strike a balance for both types of preferences. The consistency law was put to the test in a recent Court of Federal Claims decision, and the court declared limitations in the law’s protections of AbilityOne. The case involved a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) that alleged violations of the consistency law in VA’s actions on a contract for prescription eyeglasses. The VA informed the SDVOSB contractor that it intended to move the requirement from the SDVOSB program back to AbilityOne. Prescription eyeglasses had been an AbilityOne requirement since before 2006. The court said the consistency law did not protect the AbilityOne non-profit in this case, and ruled in favor of the SDVOSB.
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