The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has thrown out the bid-protest count in a veteran-owned transportation company's challenge to the Department of Veterans Affairs' rideshare partnership with Uber Health, ruling the arrangement falls outside the court's procurement jurisdiction. In an opinion filed for publication July 23, 2026, Judge Armando O. Bonilla dismissed Count I of 28 Trans, LLC's nine-count complaint against the government and Uber Technologies, Inc., while leaving the company's breach-of-contract claims alive for further litigation.
Background
28 Trans, LLC is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business that holds a five-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, awarded Jan. 1, 2024, to provide non-emergency special-mode ground transportation for the VA San Francisco Health Care System. The IDIQ carries a $2,000 guaranteed minimum and a $25 million lifetime ceiling. Special-mode transportation typically covers veterans who need wheelchair-accessible vans or other equipped vehicles to reach medical appointments.
Around the same period, the VA scaled up an enterprise-wide rideshare initiative built on a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Uber Health, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Uber Technologies. According to the record, the VHA-Uber Health Connect program launched as a pilot at ten VA medical centers in January 2022, expanded to sixty-eight facilities the following year, and, per the VA's own figures cited in the litigation, delivered more than 263,000 rides to over 38,000 patients between January 2022 and March 2024 for $7.9 million, which the agency credits with nearly $200 million in cost avoidance.
28 Trans says that expansion came at its direct expense. The company alleges the VA effectively steered rides that would otherwise have gone through its IDIQ contract to Uber Health instead, cutting its monthly bookings by roughly 90 percent by October 2024. The company sued, framing the shift both as an improper procurement action and as a breach of its existing contract.
Before suing, 28 Trans pursued administrative remedies under the Contract Disputes Act. On June 24, 2025, the company submitted a certified claim for equitable adjustment seeking nearly $900,000 in damages for the VA's alleged breach of contract, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, negligence, fraud, fraudulent inducement and bad faith in diverting trips from 28 Trans to Uber Health. It filed a second claim on July 18, 2025, seeking an additional $300,000 tied to the alleged out-of-scope change. The contracting officer denied both claims in a final decision dated Dec. 9, 2025, and 28 Trans filed suit at the Court of Federal Claims on Feb. 5, 2026.
Key Details
28 Trans's complaint packed in nine separate counts: a bid protest, a claim for equitable adjustment, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligence and fraud, fraudulent inducement, bad faith, a request for attorney's fees, and a claim that the VA's actions constituted an out-of-scope change to the existing IDIQ. The company sought declaratory and injunctive relief along with more than $1.1 million in damages.
The government moved to dismiss Count I, the bid-protest claim, under Rule of the Court of Federal Claims 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Bid-protest jurisdiction under the Tucker Act requires that the challenged government action qualify as a "procurement." Judge Bonilla agreed with the government's framing, holding that the VA-Uber Health rideshare arrangement does not meet that bar because the rideshare rides are delivered for the direct benefit of individual veteran patients rather than for the benefit of the government itself. On that basis, the court granted the motion to dismiss Count I. The opinion states plainly that "In sum, 28 Trans' challenge to the VA's collaboration with Uber Health...does not fall within this Court's bid protest jurisdiction," and that "defendant's motion to dismiss Count I of plaintiff's complaint (bid protest) pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(1) (ECF 17) is granted."
Importantly, the ruling did not end the case. Counts II through IX, including the breach-of-contract, implied-covenant, and out-of-scope-change claims, remain pending. The court's order requires the government to answer the surviving counts by Aug. 6, 2026, meaning the substantive dispute over whether the VA improperly diverted work away from 28 Trans's IDIQ contract will continue to be litigated on the merits.
GovTranz, LLC, which holds a comparable VA special-mode transportation IDIQ for a different region, and Navarre Corporation both appeared as amici curiae in the case. Their participation signals that the underlying question, whether and how a rideshare partnership like Uber Health Connect can coexist with existing IDIQ transportation contracts, has relevance beyond 28 Trans's individual dispute.
What It Means for Contractors
The ruling draws a jurisdictional line that VA transportation contractors, and potentially contractors in other health and human-services categories, need to understand. A government partnership or agreement that delivers services directly to end beneficiaries, rather than to the agency itself, may not qualify as a "procurement" for Tucker Act bid-protest purposes, even if that arrangement displaces work an existing contractor expected to perform. Contractors who believe an agency is steering volume away from their IDIQ through a parallel program cannot necessarily rely on a bid protest to challenge it in the Court of Federal Claims.
That does not mean contractors are without recourse. Judge Bonilla's decision to let 28 Trans's breach-of-contract and related claims proceed shows that a company squeezed by a competing agency initiative may still have a viable path through contract-law theories, arguing the agency violated the terms of the existing agreement, changed its scope without authorization, or breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, even where a bid protest will not reach the underlying conduct. For IDIQ holders in particular, this case is a reminder that guaranteed minimums and contract scope language matter: 28 Trans's ability to keep fighting rests on the terms of its own contract, not on procurement law.
The involvement of Navarre Corporation and GovTranz as amici also suggests other VA transportation vendors are watching closely. Any contractor holding a non-emergency medical transportation IDIQ, or a similar direct-to-beneficiary services contract, with the VA or another health-focused agency should review whether the agency has stood up or expanded a parallel arrangement, such as a CRADA-based rideshare or delivery partnership, that could reduce contract volume. Where that has happened, the 28 Trans opinion suggests the strongest legal footing is likely to be found in the contract itself rather than in procurement-protest law. The case now moves toward the government's Aug. 6, 2026 answer on the remaining counts, and the eventual outcome on the breach-of-contract claims will offer further guidance on how far agencies can go in supplementing IDIQ services with outside partnerships before crossing into an unauthorized change in contract scope.
