Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-00-01023/USCOURTS-caDC-00-01023-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Aviation Administration
Respondent
J.A. Jones Management Services
Petitioner
Wackenhut Services, Inc.
Intervenor

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 6, 2000 Decided September 29, 2000

No. 00-1023

J.A. Jones Management Services,

Petitioner

v.

Federal Aviation Administration,

Respondent

Wackenhut Services, Inc.,

Intervenor

On Petition for Review of a Final Order of the

Federal Aviation Administration

Douglas L. Patin argued the cause and filed the briefs for

petitioner.

Sandra Wien Simon, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief

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were David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General,

and Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Attorney.

Richard J. Webber argued the cause and filed the brief for

intervenor Wackenhut Services, Inc.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Ginsburg and Tatel,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Tatel.

Tatel, Circuit Judge: A disappointed bidder challenges the

Federal Aviation Administration's award of a contract. Reviewing the FAA's decision pursuant to the highly deferential

arbitrary and capricious standard, we deny the petition for

review.

I

Following a competitive bidding process, the FAA awarded

Wackenhut Services, Inc., intervenor herein, a $5 million

contract to provide operations and maintenance services at

the William Hughes Technical Center, a 5059 acre facility in

New Jersey that serves as the national scientific test base for

FAA research, development, and acquisition programs. Pursuant to FAA procedures, petitioner J.A. Jones Management,

an unsuccessful bidder, protested the award to the agency's

Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition ("ODRA"). In

that protest, Jones claimed both that the agency failed to

follow its own procedures and that Wackenhut failed to meet

the contract solicitation's substantive requirements. After

reviewing the evidence and making factual findings, ODRA

recommended that Jones's protest be denied. Adopting

ODRA's findings and recommendations, the FAA Administrator issued a final order awarding the contract to Wackenhut.

The solicitation required the contract to be awarded to the

responsible, low-priced offeror deemed acceptable in each of

several listed technical areas. The agency contracting officer,

assisted by a contract specialist, oversaw the procurement

decision. As outlined in the solicitation, an eight-member

Technical Evaluation Board following a Technical Evaluation

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Plan was responsible for determining whether offers met the

technical requirements. According to the Plan, if the Board

unanimously decided that an offer failed in any one area, the

offeror would be disqualified from further consideration. All

agree that if the Board was not unanimous, the contracting

officer would retain discretion to award the contract to the

offeror.

At a July 26, 1999 meeting, the Technical Evaluation Board

unanimously disqualified Wackenhut, stating in its report that

the company had failed in two specific areas: demonstrating

how it would remove snow from the facility and proposing an

electrical engineer with the required work experience. Reviewing the Board decision, the contract specialist discovered

that the individual evaluation sheet of one of the Board

members--Evaluator F--indicated that he had given Wackenhut a passing grade in both areas. In particular, referring

to the snow removal task, Evaluator F wrote on his scoring

sheet: "I think this was addressed adequately." When the

contract specialist asked for an explanation, the Board chair

pointed out that, despite his individual assessment, Evaluator

F had signed the report disqualifying Wackenhut in the two

areas. The chair also told the contract specialist that Evaluator F had agreed to change his individual scoring sheet to

reflect the Board's evaluation. As ODRA later found, however, Evaluator F failed to do so.

Unsatisfied, the contract specialist arranged a second

Board meeting to discuss the inconsistency between the

Board report and Evaluator F's individual scoring sheet. At

that meeting, which occurred on August 12, Evaluator F

reiterated his belief in the acceptability of Wackenhut's offer

and refused to change his evaluation sheet. During a break

in the meeting, Evaluator F, believing that his unwillingness

to change his assessment of Wackenhut had become an

obstacle to agreement, telephoned the contract specialist and

asked to be removed from the Board. The contract specialist

denied his request.

After the break, the chair called the contract specialist to

inform her that the Board was still discussing Wackenhut's

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proposal. The contract specialist directed the chair to postpone any further action until she finished discussing the

matter with the contracting officer and agency counsel. During that discussion, the three found Wackenhut's offer technically acceptable and decided not to follow the Board's assessment. Learning of this decision, the chair reconvened the

Board. Under the circumstances, the Board decided it was

pointless to meet further. The contracting officer later determined that Wackenhut was the responsible, low-priced offeror

deemed acceptable in all of the solicitation's technical areas.

Wackenhut was awarded the contract.

After hearing testimony about these events, ODRA concluded that the contracting officer properly followed agency

procedures in awarding the contract to Wackenhut. Central

to the dispute in this case, ODRA found that the Board's

decision had not been unanimous and that Wackenhut had

therefore not been disqualified. This determination rested

primarily on the events of the August 12 meeting--in particular, Evaluator F's continued refusal to agree that Wackenhut

was unacceptable. At one point in its report, ODRA found

that "[i]t is undisputed that, at the conclusion of the final

Board meeting on August 12, the Board, in a non-unanimous

vote, found Wackenhut's proposal unacceptable." Reviewing

all of the evidence, ODRA concluded that the meeting "ended

in a non-unanimous Board decision."

Jones, the unsuccessful bidder, now challenges the award of

the contract to Wackenhut. Jones claims that, contrary to

ODRA's finding, no non-unanimous vote occurred at the end

of the August 12 meeting. As Jones views the events of

August 12, the Board reached no decision at all. Accordingly,

Jones argues, the contracting officer was bound by the July

26 unanimous disqualification of Wackenhut. Focusing on

three of the solicitation's technical requirements, Jones also

challenges the contracting officer's determination that Wackenhut was qualified. We consider each claim in turn.

II

We review the FAA's non-unanimity finding under the

familiar arbitrary and capricious standard. See 5 U.S.C.

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s 706(2)(A). Under this standard, we "may reverse only if

the agency's decision is not supported by substantial evidence, or the agency has made a clear error in judgment."

Kisser v. Cisneros, 14 F.3d 615, 619 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see also

49 U.S.C. s 46110(c) (FAA "[f]indings of fact ..., if supported

by substantial evidence, are conclusive."). Jones fails to

appreciate the result this highly deferential standard so clearly dictates.

Jones argues that the contracting officer lacked discretion

to disregard the Board's disqualification of Wackenhut. Because Jones concedes that the contracting officer had discretion to disregard a non-unanimous Board, its claim necessarily turns on its assertion that the Board was in fact

unanimous. To prevail, Jones must demonstrate that the

agency's determination to the contrary did not rest on substantial evidence. Yet as ODRA found, not only did Evaluator F declare Wackenhut acceptable on his individual scoring sheet (which he never altered despite his apparent

promise to do so), but at the August 12 meeting, he again

refused to change his evaluation. This evidence is more

than enough to sustain the agency's finding of nonunanimity.

Seeking to undermine the agency's decision, Jones argues

that it rests on an unsupported ODRA factual finding: that

"it is undisputed that, at the conclusion of the final Board

meeting on August 12, the Board, in a non-unanimous vote,

found Wackenhut's proposals unacceptable." The finding

that formal balloting took place at the August 12 meeting

indeed lacks support in the record. ODRA's error does not

require reversal, however, for we do not believe that the

agency rested its decision solely on the existence of a formal

vote. See 5 U.S.C. s 706 ("[D]ue account shall be taken of

the rule of prejudicial error."). As we read ODRA's report,

the agency relied primarily on Evaluator F's individual evaluation sheet and his statements at the August 12 meeting.

Using the word "vote" only twice, ODRA's report repeatedly

refers to a non-unanimous Board "decision." Moreover, as

Jones's counsel concedes, neither the agency's procedures nor

the contract solicitation required a formal vote, so ODRA had

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no reason to consider the existence of a vote significant.

Thus, even without relying on the existence of a nonunanimous vote, the agency had adequate support for its

ultimate conclusion that "[t]he August 12 meeting, which was

the last meeting of the Board on the subject, ended in a nonunanimous Board decision of unacceptability of the Wackenhut proposal."

Jones provides little evidence to counter the agency's nonunanimity determination. Pointing out that the contract specialist cut off the August 12 meeting in the middle of discussion, Jones argues that the Board reached no decision at all.

While this is certainly one possible view of what happened at

the meeting, the question we face is "not whether [petitioner's] view of the facts supports its version of what happened,

but rather whether the [agency's] interpretation of the facts

is reasonably defensible." Harter Tomato Prods. Co. v.

NLRB, 133 F.3d 934, 938 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (internal quotation

marks omitted). As we demonstrate above, ODRA's nonunanimity determination finds more than adequate support in

the record.

III

Jones's remaining claims require little attention. Arguing

that Wackenhut's offer failed to meet the solicitation's substantive requirements, Jones urges us to reverse the agency's

final contract award. Where a procurement decision requires

an agency to assess an offeror's qualifications to perform a

contract, our review is "especially deferential." See Iceland

S.S. Co., Ltd.-Eimskip v. United States Dept. of the Army,

201 F.3d 451, 461 (D.C. Cir. 2000). We are particularly

reluctant to second-guess agency decisionmaking on these

" 'delicate questions.' " Elcon Enters., Inc. v. Washington

Metro. Area Transit Auth., 977 F.2d 1472, 1479 (D.C. Cir.

1992) (quoting Delta Data Sys. Corp. v. Webster, 744 F.2d

197, 203 (D.C. Cir. 1984)).

Jones first claims that Wackenhut failed to satisfy the

solicitation's past performance provisions, which required experience managing a facility of similar size, i.e., with "over 60

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employees and/or over $5 million per year." The FAA found

that Wackenhut met this requirement, based in part on its

experience managing a correctional facility with sixty workers, including forty-four inmates. Jones contends that the

agency erred in considering the inmates to be employees.

But as the agency found, the inmates were employees because they were both paid and supervised by Wackenhut.

Given our especially deferential standard of review, we cannot

imagine a basis for overturning the agency's judgment on this

issue. Nor do we find any reason to credit Jones's unsupported assertion that Wackenhut's experience managing a

correctional facility was not the type of experience the solicitation required.

Jones next argues that the FAA was not entitled to award

the contract to Wackenhut because the company failed to

include in its offer a copy of its proposed Environmental

Specialist's license. By providing that such a failure "may"

render the proposal ineligible, however, the solicitation left

the agency with discretion to award the contract to a bidder

whose offer omitted the required license.

Equally without merit is Jones's final claim that the agency

was not entitled to award the contract to Wackenhut because

its offer contained rEsumEs of key personnel whose consent

had not been obtained. Relying again on our highly deferential standard of review, we find no basis for disturbing

ODRA's judgment that the rEsumEs were submitted in good

faith.

IV

The petition for review is denied.

So ordered.

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