76. Nonappropriated Fund Instrumentality Claims

A nonappropriated fund instrumentality (NAFI) is an entity to which Congress has appropriated no funds, and for which it assumes no financial obligation. See Standard Oil Co. v. Johnson, 316 U.S. 481, 485 (1942). NAFIs include military post exchanges and officers clubs. Slattery v. United States, 635 F.3d 1298, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (en banc). Although a Government entity's status as a NAFI used to be a bar to jurisdiction over contract disputes under the Tucker Act, the jurisdictional criterion no longer is how the entity is funded, but whether it was acting on behalf of the Government. Id. at 1301.

[updated September 2013; cited in JM 4-4.420]