Appeals panel hears dispute over whether three years of invoices formed a lease between LEAP and Hoffman Pacific

A federal appellate panel heard arguments in Leading Edge Equipment Partners v. Hoffman Pacific on whether a 2017 email and years of invoicing established a lease between LEAP and Hoffman Pacific JV (HPJV) and whether the trial court properly granted summary judgment for LEAP.

Michael Grace, counsel for Hoffman Pacific, asked the court to reverse the trial court's ruling, saying the lower court “erred in resolving questions of fact in a light most favorable to Leading Edge” and pointing the panel to a 2017 email the parties dispute as the supposed contract. Grace also told the panel that from 2017 to 2020 HPJV paid LEAP’s invoices monthly and that an audit in 2020 led the state to challenge the rates in those invoices.

LEAP’s appellate counsel, Lindsay Watkins, said the record shows LEAP “leased pieces of equipment to HPJV for the Coleman Dock project” for three years and that HPJV paid the invoiced rates, facts she said support affirming summary judgment and awarding attorney fees under the public works bond statute. She argued exceptions to the statute of frauds apply because the equipment was received and accepted and HPJV admitted leasing in interrogatory answers.

Throughout argument the panel pressed both sides about whether course of performance can supply missing contractual terms, whether the September–December 2020 period created a “gray area” about rates, and whether any post‑2020 change amounted to a mutual modification or simple dispute with the state. The court took the matter under submission after a brief recess and said it would swap panels for the next calendar item.

The hearing did not produce a decision; the court recessed to bring a different panel for the next case.