Opinion ID: 2327680
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Standing of ECI

Text: ECI first claims that the trial court incorrectly concluded that it lacked standing to challenge the imposition of the PLA requirement and the rejection of its lowest, responsible, qualified bids for the school construction projects. ECI specifically claims that the trial court misapplied this court's narrow holding in Associated Builders & Contractors that the plaintiffs did not have standing because they had not bid on the project, as ECI had done in the present case. In addition, ECI claims that the court in Associated Builders & Contractors never considered the cost effects on the public bidding process of disqualifying nonunion contractors and workers, who constitute 90 percent of the local electrical workforce and 80 percent of the overall construction workforce, and never ruled on the discriminatory effects of the plaintiffs' challenge to the PLA requirement. ECI further claims that the trial court in the present case disregarded the extensive factual record before it, including overwhelming evidence that the effect of the PLA requirement was to exclude nonunion contractors and employees from working on the projects, and did not properly consider that ECI was the lowest, responsible qualified bidder. In this regard, ECI maintains that the complaint and accompanying affidavits set forth numerous ways in which the PLA requirement discriminated against ECI and other nonunion contractors and caused them to suffer specific, actionable harm by effectively barring them from working on the projects. The nonstate defendants respond [13] that ECI's claim as to the validity of the PLA requirement is virtually identical to the claim that was unsuccessfully raised by the plaintiffs in Associated Builders & Contractors and that ECI's attempt to distinguish the present case from that and other Connecticut precedent is without merit. In particular, the nonstate defendants argue that Associated Builders & Contractors determined that cost is not a factor to be considered in deciding whether the competitive bidding laws are undermined. They further argue that neither ECI nor other nonunion contractors presented evidence that the PLA requirement prevented nonunion contractors from bidding or working on the projects by making it economically unfeasible for them to do so. The nonstate defendants thus contend that ECI has failed to prove that it has standing because it did not establish that the PLA requirement was used to perpetuate fraud, corruption, favoritism or conduct that undermines the objective and integrity of the competitive bidding process. We agree with ECI that the trial court incorrectly concluded that it did not have standing. Because our analysis of this claim requires us to consider how the trial court interpreted and applied Associated Builders & Contractors, we divide the following discussion into three parts. In the first part, we review the reasoning in Associated Builders & Contractors. We next consider how the trial court applied Associated Builders & Contractors in the present case and explain why we disagree with the trial court's conclusions. We finally examine the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' allegations that the PLA requirement was used to perpetuate fraud, corruption, favoritism or other conduct that undermined the objective and integrity of the competitive bidding process. 1