A federal court authorized court-appointed counsel in a criminal prosecution to retain Marcum for forensic accounting and litigation support services. There's a federal statute which allows for payment for these services, and if the cost exceeds $2,400, the chief judge of the regional circuit must approve. The work Marcum performed went over that amount. By a lot. As in hundreds of thousands. The submitted budget was $4.5 million. Marcum didn't get the Fifth Circuit's chief judge's sign off.
When Marcum received payment of some (but not all) of its invoices from the court, it sued in the Court of Federal Claims for a taking under the Tucker Act for the difference.
No deal, held the Federal Circuit. In Marcum LLP v. United States, No. 14-5001 (June 13, 2014), the court held that the CFC Tucker Act lawsuit was a collateral attack on the Fifth Circuit's determination of the fees to which Marcum was entitled, and that Marcum could not invoke the CFC's jurisdiction. The statutory process to obtain fees from the Fifth Circuit was a "self-executing remedial scheme for review of fee awards," meaning that the Tucker Act remedy is not available.
Marcum LLP v. United States, No. 2014-5001 (Fed. Cir. June 13, 2014)
