Opinion ID: 18032
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proprietary nature of the City's actions

Text: 16 Here, the City acted as a typical private party would act in seeking a towing service, and preemption should not apply. In distinguishing between proprietary action that is immune from preemption and impermissible attempts to regulate through the spending power, the key under Boston Harbor is to focus on two questions. First, does the challenged action essentially reflect the entity's own interest in its efficient procurement of needed goods and services, as measured by comparison with the typical behavior of private parties in similar circumstances? Second, does the narrow scope of the challenged action defeat an inference that its primary goal was to encourage a general policy rather than address a specific proprietary problem? Both questions seek to isolate a class of government interactions with the market that are so narrowly focused, and so in keeping with the ordinary behavior of private parties, that a regulatory impulse can be safely ruled out. Since the answer to both questions here is affirmative, this case is at least on the surface firmly within the realm of Boston Harbor 's permissible proprietary action. 17 The City's ordinance and contract specifications had an obvious connection to the City's narrow proprietary interest in its own efficient procurement of services. Selecting a single company to perform the City's tows clarified responsibility, minimized administrative confusion, and allowed for the setting and easy supervision of a unitary quality standard for that particular work for the City. The specifications in the contract were also obviously related to efficient towing--the key provisions dealt with the City's core speed and reliability concerns, and the other requirements dealt with the type of administrative and legal issues that would be of interest to a private entity--insurance and record keeping. In light of these facts, Cardinal does not claim, and we cannot find any suggestion, that the City was doing anything else other than setting specifications that would insure the efficient performance of the contract with the City for City police tows. 2 There is no indication that it was trying to generally encourage the possession of class eight wreckers the way the state in Gould sought to encourage compliance with the NLRA or the City in Air Transport sought to encourage domestic partnership benefits. 18 Nor do the scope of the ordinance and contractual specifications at issue here call into question the proprietary character of the City's actions. Unlike the attempts of other municipalities to deal with tow truck issues, the City here limited itself only to true nonconsent tows where the owner of the vehicle was unwilling or unable to specify a towing company. Cf. R. Mayer of Atlanta, Inc. v. City of Atlanta, 158 F.3d 538, 540-41 (11th Cir.1998) (permit required for all tows within city); Ace Auto Body & Towing, Ltd. v. City of New York, 171 F.3d 765, 768-69 (2d Cir.1999) (rates capped for all tows within city, general licencing requirements imposed on all companies, and system set limiting tows from the scene of an accident to selected companies even if vehicle owner requested another independently). And as in Boston Harbor--but unlike Gould--the specifications here looked only to the bidder's dealings with the City. Cardinal's failure to guarantee its other customers access to a large wrecker or service within fifteen minutes would have had no impact on its bid if the City had been satisfied it would receive such service. Cf. Reich, 74 F.3d at 1338 (noting effect of executive order would be to force any corporation that hoped to do business with the government to refrain from hiring replacement workers on all of its projects). Finally, the contract specifications here did not apply to all City contracts going forward, but only a single contract for police tows. See Boston Harbor, 113 S.Ct. at 1198 (noting contract was specifically tailored to one particular job). If, for example, the City struck an agreement for the movement of furniture and records to a new government office, the bidding moving companies would not be forced to obtain a class eight wrecker. Taken together, the limited scope here decisively forecloses an inference that the City sought to change the tow truck industry as a whole, let alone influence society at large. 19