Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/99-1515/99-1515a-2011-03-24.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:19:50+00:00

Document:
Katherine S. Nucci argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs was Timothy Sullivan.
Daniel L. Kaplan, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Mark B. Stern, Attorney, and Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney. Wil- liam G. Kanter, Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Jus- tice, entered an appearance.
Patricia H. Wittie was on the brief for intervenor Informa- tica of America, Inc.
Rogers, Circuit Judge: The Federal Aviation Administra- tion ("FAA") awarded a contract to Multimax, Inc. ("Multi- max"), but reversed its decision after an unsuccessful bidder, Informatica of America, Inc. ("Informatica"), protested the award to FAA's Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition ("ODRA"). ODRA found the contract award to Multimax to be "without a rational basis and contrary to the [required procurement] evaluation criteria." The FAA Administrator issued a final order adopting ODRA's findings and recommen- dations to terminate Multimax's contract and hire Informatica to complete the contract. On appeal, Multimax contends that ODRA applied the wrong standard of review, that its key findings of fact are unsupported by substantial evidence, and that its disregard of evidence was arbitrary and capricious, resulting in an abuse of discretion and a decision contrary to law. We deny the petition for review.
__________ * Senior Judge Silberman was in regular active service at the time of oral argument.
spective bidders that their proposals would be subjected to a "best value" evaluation-a type of bidding process in which "combined technical criteria are more important than price." Thus, the solicitation stated that "the successful offeror may not necessarily be the [one providing the] lowest priced offer," but also advised that "[p]rice may become more impor- tant as the difference between competing technical scores decrease[s]."
At the Center, a five-member Technical Evaluation Team (the "TET"), chaired by Dennis Steelman, evaluated the contract proposals. After the TET eliminated non- competitive proposals, four offerors remained, including In- formatica and Multimax. The TET considered and ranked the proposals according to five factors: (1) Management Plan/Technical Approach; (2) Key Personnel; (3) Oral Pre- sentation; (4) Staffing Plan; and (5) Past Performance. The offerors were also required to submit a price proposal, sepa- rately from their technical proposal, about which the TET was not supposed to learn or take into account until its technical report was completed. By late August 1999, the TET had reached a consensus that Informatica had provided the "technically superior offer," and recommended that Infor- matica be awarded the contract. Informatica had scored about three and a half points higher than its closest competi- tor on TET's combined evaluation, and its proposal was the only one ranked "excellent" (the other three fell into the "good" range).
__________ to this mandate, and it handles protests and contract disputes that arise under the Acquisition Management System. See 14 C.F.R. part 17 (2000).
The next day, September 1, 1999, the TET was reconvened, and its members agreed that a Factor 5 scoring error had been made. Informatica was given the opportunity to submit additional past performance references. However, the TET found these references lacking, and Informatica's score on Factor Five was reduced considerably, from average to poor. After the Factor 5 rescoring, on September 3, 1999, the TET characterized Informatica as the "marginally technically supe- rior offeror." Informatica's edge over its closest competitor had dropped from three and a half to two points, although its proposal was still the only one that had won an "excellent" rating.
__________ 2 As noted subsequently by ODRA, potential offerors and con- tracting officials at the Center demonstrated some confusion about whether Factor 5 was confined to evaluation of performance as a general contractor only.
for Multimax....]" A contract with Multimax was executed on September 15, 1999.
to Ternay, Ward, and other officials at the Center on Septem- ber 8 characterized the offerors as equally capable and rec- ommended awarding the contract to Multimax. ODRA inter- preted the events of September 8 as evidence of a dramatic difference in viewpoint between Steelman and Ternay on that date. Thus, ODRA considered Steelman's drafts expressing a preference for Multimax to be a "total about-face" from the judgment of Ternay that was unduly influenced by price information.
In view of its findings, ODRA recommended that the contract with Multimax be terminated, and remaining parts of the contract be awarded to Informatica. ODRA's report stated that "it is clear that [Informatica] should have been awarded the contract, had the Solicitation's evaluation criteria been followed, and there is nothing that would render imprac- ticable an [Informatica] takeover at this stage." The FAA Administrator adopted ODRA's findings and recommenda- tions, and Multimax challenges the Administrator's order, requesting that it be vacated with instructions to terminate the contract with Informatica and to execute a new contract with Multimax.
referred, namely that the so-called critical "Price/Technical Trade-off" section in the September 8 version of the award recommendation document was created before the Factor 5 rescoring.
Our review is confined to determining whether the FAA's order adopting the ODRA's findings and recommendations is arbitrary or capricious or contrary to law. See 5 U.S.C. s 706(2)(A). Thus, as the court recently stated in J.A. Jones Management Services v. FAA, 225 F.3d 761 (D.C. Cir. 2000), "[u]nder this standard, [the court] 'may reverse only if the agency's decision is not supported by substantial evidence, or the agency has made a clear error in judgment.' " Jones, 225 F.3d at 764 (quoting Kisser v. Cisneros, 14 F.3d 615, 619 (D.C. Cir. 1994)); see also 49 U.S.C.A. s 46110(c) (West 1997). The court's scrutiny is highly deferential because the court is reviewing an agency procurement decision that impli- cates the agency's technical expertise. "Where a procure- ment 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). [The court is] particularly reluctant to second-guess agency decisionmaking on these " 'delicate questions.' " Elcon En- ters., 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, 225 F.3d at 765.
Thus, Multimax's contention that ODRA applied the wrong standard of review is misplaced. To the extent that ODRA was required to apply an arbitrary and capricious standard of review, ODRA met this requirement. Because ODRA deter- mined that the IPT had impermissibly deviated from a "best value" evaluation scheme, it was not unreasonable for ODRA to recommend that Informatica's protest be sustained. Given our highly deferential scrutiny, we conclude, in the absence of evidence that ODRA's decision process "involved a clear and prejudicial violation of applicable statutes or regulations," that ODRA's findings and recommendations are consistent with arbitrary and capricious review. Elcon Enters., 977 F.2d at 1478 (quoting Kentron Hawaii, Ltd. v. Warner, 480 F.2d 1166, 1169 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Kisser, 14 F.3d at 618.
Similarly, Multimax fails to demonstrate that ODRA erred by substituting its technical judgment for the Center's assess- ment of price and technical tradeoffs, instead of simply check- ing to see that the Center's final procurement decision was rational. ODRA's report focused on the integrity of the procurement process, and correctly scrutinized the actions of the Center's officials to determine whether they adhered to a "best value" evaluation. Furthermore, the regulations that govern ODRA afford it broad discretion to choose an appro- priate remedy for a successful protest. See 14 C.F.R. s 17.21 (2000).
Multimax's contention that ODRA's findings are not sup- ported by substantial evidence also fails. Substantial evi- dence is defined as "more than a 'scintilla,' but less than a preponderance of the evidence." Evans Fin. Corp. v. Di- rector, Office of Workers Compensation Programs, 161 F.3d 30, 34 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Again, Jones provides useful guidance. "[T]he question [the court] face[s] 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 reason- ably defensible.' Harter Tomato Prods. Co. v. NLRB, 133 F.3d 934, 938 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks omitted)." Jones, 225 F.3d at 765.
was not made part of the administrative record, and hence ODRA had no opportunity to rule on it. Multimax was a party to the ODRA adjudication, received during discovery the document that it now uses to dispute ODRA's findings, and is unable to provide any excuse for its failure to bring the document to ODRA's attention. "The burden of uncovering and pointing to the facts relevant to the case before the agency [belongs to] the parties most concerned in the matter ... Our role is to review the agency's handling of the objections put before it, not to provide a forum for new arguments based upon different facts that the petitioner could have but did not bring out below." Sprint Communications Co., L.P. v. FCC, 76 F.3d 1221, 1227-28 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
In view of the record before it, ODRA's inference that the language in Ternay's September 8 email message supported the conclusion that the Technical Evaluation Report departed from the principles of "best value" proposal evaluation was reasonable. Furthermore, even if that particular inference about the events of September 8 could be considered dubious, ODRA's decision remains supported by substantial evidence. Even if there was no disagreement between Ternay and Steelman on September 8, there is still evidence to support the conclusion that the IPT deviated from the principles of "best value" assessment. Contrary to Multimax's contention, ODRA's findings are not solely based on its interpretation of the email messages sent by the IPT on September 8. Rath- er, the bulk of ODRA's findings and the core elements of its recommendations are supported by at least three other con- siderations.
als, with the particular result of awarding the contract to Multimax in mind. Third, ODRA was influenced by the way that Steelman revised the Technical Evaluation Report and the Award Recommendation and Determination after he learned about the prices of the proposals, making Informati- ca's strengths seem less significant and making Multimax's weaknesses appear less problematic. These three factors serve as substantial evidence to support ODRA's conclusion that the IPT abandoned the "best value" analysis to which it was required to adhere. Thus, any mistaken inference that ODRA may have made does not require reversal. See Jones, 225 F.3d at 764, citing 5 U.S.C. s 706.
Accordingly, we deny the petition for review.

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