Board of Contract Appeals General Services Administration Washington, D.C. 20405 October 4, 1999 GSBCA 15041-RELO In the Matter of JOYCE A. MOOMAW Joyce A. Moomaw, Milford, PA, Claimant. Ray E. York, Deputy Director, Systems and Procedures, Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Indianapolis Center, Indianapolis, IN, appearing for Department of Defense. DANIELS, Board Judge (Chairman). In April 1998, the Department of Defense (DoD) directed one of its quality assurance specialists, Joyce A. Moomaw, to transfer from the Savanna Defense Ammunition Center in Illinois to Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. The agency authorized shipment of Ms. Moomaw's household goods under a Government bill of lading (GBL) and storage of those goods at Government expense for ninety (later extended to 120) days. The goods were ready for shipment in May. Ms. Moomaw had not secured a residence near her new duty station prior to moving, so she asked, and the agency agreed, to have her belongings stored in the closest town to that station, Rockaway, New Jersey. After moving east, Ms. Moomaw purchased a house in Milford, Pennsylvania, just across the state line from New Jersey, and requested that the goods be delivered to her there. The company which had stored the items charged $460.88 to deliver them, and at DoD's insistence, the employee paid this amount. Ms. Moomaw now asks us to review the agency's determination that she, not the Government, is liable for the charge. The employee is correct in thinking that the Government should have paid for shipment of the goods from the storage facility to her new home. Generally, when household goods are shipped under a GBL, "the Government . . . pays transportation vouchers directly to carriers." 41 CFR 302-8.3(b)(1) (1997). Costs for temporary storage to be paid by the Government include "in and out charges and necessary drayage within the applicable limitations." Id. 302-8.5(b)(2). "Drayage" means "a charge for the local transportation of property." Black's Law Dictionary 495 (6th ed. 1990). "Limitations," as used in the regulation, refers to matters of weight, services, and valuation -- the Government does not pay for transportation of goods weighing in excess of 18,000 pounds, or special services or supplemental insurance requested by the employee. 41 CFR 302-8.5(b)(2). The record contains no indication that any of these concerns pertained to shipment of Ms. Moomaw's belongings. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), which is presenting the agency's case to us, has made two responses to the claim. In the first response, DFAS maintains that Joint Travel Regulations (JTR) paragraph C8001-C is controlling. That paragraph says that the total amount paid by the Government for shipping an employee's household goods "shall not exceed the cost of transporting the [goods] in one lot by the most economical route from the last PDS [permanent duty station] of the transferring employee to the new PDS." The total payable, according to DFAS, is consequently the cost of shipping the goods directly from Ms. Moomaw's old residence in Clinton, Iowa, to her new home in Milford, Pennsylvania. DFAS thinks that if the employee had alerted the agency that the goods should have been sent to Milford, not Rockaway, New Jersey, the expense of moving the belongings from Rockaway to Milford would not have been incurred. This argument ignores both the terms of Ms. Moomaw's travel orders and the reality of her situation. The orders authorized temporary storage of the goods. In doing so, they envisioned that the goods would have to be shipped in two stages -- first to a storage facility and later from that facility to the employee's new residence. This was sensible, given the fact (known to the agency) that when Ms. Moomaw moved east, she did not already have a place to live there. How could the employee have told the agency, in advance of the move, to send the goods to Milford, when she had no home there (or anywhere else)? The travel regulations do not require clairvoyance on the part of relocating employees. JTR C8001-C is concerned with situations in which goods are being shipped to or from locations other than the employee's old or new duty stations, or in more than one load. The paragraph does not speak about shipments being stored en route, and it does not say that transportation costs which result from such storage are the employee's responsibility. In a second response to the claim, DFAS says that paragraph 5006.c(1) of DoD's Personal Property Traffic Management Regulation (DOD 4500.34-R) is justification for demanding that Ms. Moomaw pay for transporting the goods from the storage facility. The paragraph says that when a shipment of household goods is stored before being delivered to its final destination, the distance from the storage location to the final destination determines the rate to be charged. This paragraph does not say, however, that the employee shall bear the charge. For the most part, the regulation conditions the relationship between DoD and the carriers of household goods, not between the agency and its relocating employees. Indeed, the regulation supports Ms. Moomaw's position, in that its paragraph 6000.h says that when delivery of goods from storage is requested, the carrier shall prepare a form for billing purposes and send it to a DoD office. No mention is made of billing the employee. Although the filings by the employee and the agency make several assertions as to where the goods were stored, we have not discussed this matter. The location may have been somewhere on Long Island, New York (Ms. Moomaw's original thought); Staten Island, New York (according to a DoD transportation officer in Rock Island, Illinois); Jamesburg, New Jersey (the employee says the carrier told this to her husband); or Rockaway, New Jersey (according to DFAS). Wherever the storage facility was located, it was chosen by the agency or the carrier it selected. If the location was so far from the residence from which Ms. Moomaw commuted to her new duty station as to make transportation charges from storage high, that is not a problem caused in any way by the employee. Another subject discussed in the filings, but not in this decision, is excess charges for delivery beyond a thirty-mile limit. Paragraph 5006.c(3) of DoD's Personal Property Traffic Management Regulation seems to be the source of the agency's concern about this matter. That paragraph says, "When the final destination of a shipment not in [storage-in-transit] is changed to a new final destination more than 30 miles from the original destination, the shipment shall be diverted. Billing for a shipment diversion shall be based on the actual revised linehaul mileage plus the additional charges specified in the governing document." This paragraph is not applicable to Ms. Moomaw's situation, not only because the billing directive does not require payment by the employee, but also because Ms. Moomaw's goods were in storage-in-transit and were not diverted. The agency should not have required Ms. Moomaw to pay the amount at issue. It should reimburse her for the cost now. _________________________ STEPHEN M. DANIELS Board Judge