Differentiating Between Design and Performance Specifications

Contractors may recover their increased costs of performance attributable to government-supplied defective specifications, provided they are design specifications rather than performance specifications. However, most government-furnished specifications contain both design and performance requirements. To recover under the Spearin doctrine, a contractor must prove that the requirement adversely affecting its performance relates to an area in which the government has expressly described how to perform. On the other hand, the contractor will be denied recovery if the …