Helene Curtis Industries, Inc. v. The United States

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding Government to duty to disclose “vital information which it was aware the bidders needed but would not have” when a development contract contained misleading specifications
• noting “[i]n this situation the Government, possessing vital information which it was aware the bidders needed but would not have, could not properly let them flounder on their own”.
• “Specifications so susceptible of a misleading reading (or implication) subject the defendant to answer to a contractor who has actually been misled to his injury.”
• “Where the Government ... has no duty to disclose information, and does not improperly interfere with performance, the fixed-price contractor of course bears the burden of unanticipated increases in cost[.]”
• government liable where it knew that its specifications were susceptible to misleading reading
• “Although it is not a fiduciary toward its contractors, the Government—where the balance of knowledge is so clearly on its side—can no more betray a contractor into a ruinous course of action by silence than by the written or spoken word.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).