Opinion ID: 2424301
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Procurement

Text: The MdTA proffers that the Agreement is a procurement contract, be it either for vehicles or lobbying services. In either case, it did not comport with relevant procurement laws, or so the MdTA avers, and is therefore unenforceable. The FOP argues (as it did before the Court of Special Appeals) that the Agreement, which involves the procurement of only vehicles (not services), is exempt from State procurement law. The FOP points out that procurement includes `the process of ... obtaining services' (supposedly like lobbying), but not capital expenditures, which are exempt from ordinary procurement rules. Brief of Respondent at 23 (emphasis added) (quoting Md.Code (2001, 2009 Repl.Vol., 2010 Supp.), State Finance and Procurement Article (S.F.P.), § 11-101(m)). The Court of Special Appeals agreed that procurement includes the process of obtaining services, i.e., the process of obtaining the labor, time, or effort of a contractor. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md. App. at 175-76, 5 A.3d at 1204 (quoting S.F.P., § 11-101(m)(1), (w)(1)(ii)). The intermediate appellate court noted, however, that the FOP overlooked S.F.P., § 11-101(m), which states that procurement includes also `the process of ... obtaining supplies....' Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 175, 5 A.3d at 1204. The term supplies may refer to tangible personal property, presumably including vehicles. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 175-76, 5 A.3d at 1204 (quoting S.F.P. 11-101(w)(1)(ii)). The intermediate appellate court explained also that the statute excepts the MdTA in some, but not all, respects. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 177, 5 A.3d at 1204 (quoting S.F.P. § 12-101(a), which states that [t]his section does not apply to capital expenditures by the ... [MdTA], in connection with State roads, bridges, or highways....). As a result, it concluded that, unless exempted expressly, the Legislature intended for the procurement laws to apply to the MdTA. Id. Nevertheless, our intermediate appellate brethren concluded that this particular agreement was not a procurement contract, making inapposite (1) State procurement laws, as well as (2) administrative law principles, which otherwise would require that the dispute be heard first by the relevant agency, the Board of Contract Appeals, before recourse to the courts. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 181, 5 A.3d at 1207. The Court of Special Appeals granted that the Board of Contract Appeals is not `palpably without jurisdiction' over a `contract for the procurement of ... services to be rendered to the State,' even if that contract may not technically be a `procurement contract.' Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 182-83, 5 A.3d at 1208 (quoting State v. Md. State Bd. of Contract Appeals and Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, P.C., 364 Md. 446, 458, 773 A.2d 504, 511 (2001)). It determined, however, that [t]he Agreement is not a procurement contract for vehicles ... because it is not an agreement between the MdTA and the supplier of the vehicles to the agency. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md. App. at 184, 5 A.3d at 1208. Nor is the Agreement a procurement contract for lobbying services, the intermediate appellate court resolved, as the [FOP was not] advocating for the agency's position to the Legislature. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md. App. at 184-85, 5 A.3d at 1209. To conclude, the Court of Special Appeals emphasized that the Agreement did not create a buyer-seller relationship with a State agency. Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md.App. at 185, 5 A.3d at 1209. Therefore, whether the Agreement was a procurement contract is not `reasonably debatable,' and the Board of Contract Appeals is palpably without jurisdiction.... Md. Transp. Auth, 195 Md.App. at 183, 185, 5 A.3d at 1208-09; see Md. Transp. Auth., 195 Md. App. at 183, 5 A.3d at 1208 (stating that  Angelos ... teaches ... courts [to] defer to an agency to make its own jurisdictional determination in the first instance, if the question on which jurisdiction turns is `reasonably debatable').