5. In SOUTHERN CONSTRUCTION CO. v. PICKARD, 371 U.S. 57, 83 S.Ct. 108, 9 L.Ed.2d 31 (1962), the Southern Construction Company was the prime contractor on contracts with the United States for the rehabilitation of certain barracks at Fort Campbell, Tennessee, and Fort Benning, Georgia. The plumbing and heating subcontractor on both projects was the respondent Samuel J. Pickard, doing business as Pickard Engineering Company. Pickard’s primary supplier on both projects was the Atlas Supply Company.

Pickard filed suit against Southern in district courts in both Georgia and Tennessee under the Miller Act for amounts due on the contracts. Defendant elected to assert its counterclaim for the amount paid in settlement to Atlas in the Tennessee suit, the second of the two suits commenced. Pickard answered that the counterclaim was barred for failure to raise it in the first suit as a compulsory counterclaim.