Opinion ID: 785931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The USPS's Best Value Decision

Text: 29 The central issue in this case is whether the contracting officer applied the correct standards when evaluating the submitted bids to determine which of them provided the best value to the Government. Guilford contends the solicitation required the contracting officer to place greater weight on technical factors than on pricing factors; therefore, according to Guilford, the contracting officer erred by placing equal weight on the two evaluation categories. The Government, apparently believing that the USPS is bound by an unrelated USPS bid protest decision, agrees with Guilford's interpretation of the solicitation, but nevertheless argues the Government should prevail because any error committed by the contracting officer did not prejudice Guilford. The three intervenors maintain that the solicitation did not address the relative weight to be given to the technical and pricing categories, and therefore, in accordance with several GAO bid protest cases, the two categories should receive approximately equal weight. 30 Interpretation of the solicitation is a question of law over which we exercise independent review. See Grumman Data Sys., 88 F.3d at 997. We begin with the plain language of the document. 4 Coast Fed. Bank, FSB v. United States, 323 F.3d 1035, 1038 (Fed.Cir.2003) (en banc). The solicitation is ambiguous only if its language is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. See Grumman Data Sys., 88 F.3d at 997. If the provisions of the solicitation are clear and unambiguous, they must be given their plain and ordinary meaning; we may not resort to extrinsic evidence to interpret them. Coast Fed. Bank, 323 F.3d at 1038. Finally, we must consider the solicitation as a whole, interpreting it in a manner that harmonizes and gives reasonable meaning to all of its provisions. Id. 31 We begin by examining the language of the two provisions that describe the `best value' evaluation process. Section 2.4 of the solicitation states that the USPS will award a contract to the offeror whose proposal offers the USPS the best value, price and other factors as specified considered. A list of several technical evaluation factors follows, with no mention of price. Understood in its proper context, the list of technical factors represents the other factors as specified; the absence of pricing factors from the list does not mean price is not to be considered or is to be given less weight than technical factors. The plain language of Section 2.4 simply does not state the relative weights of the technical and price categories. 32 The second provision, the Contract Award and Proposal Evaluation section, appears in an attachment to the solicitation that sets forth instructions to the offerors. This Contract Award provision begins with a reference to Section 2.4 (As stated in Section 2.4 of this Solicitation ...), and then states that an award will be made to the offeror whose proposal offers the best value, i.e., a combination of price, price-related factors, and/or other factors. The next sentence lists in descending order of importance the primary areas to be used in determining which proposal offers the best value; the list contains the same technical factors as those listed in Section 2.4, again without mention of price. 33 Guilford argues that because price was not included among the primary areas specified in the second provision, the plain language of the solicitation provides that technical factors are more important than price in the best value determination. We disagree. It is improper to view the list of primary areas in isolation. If we consider the solicitation as a whole, as we must, it is apparent from the reference to Section 2.4 that the Contract Award provision restates the information provided in Section 2.4, albeit with slightly different language. Viewed in that light, the primary areas correspond to the technical evaluation factors set forth in Section 2.4, and the absence of pricing factors from the list of primary areas does not suggest that price is less important than the technical evaluation criteria. The list of primary areas shows the relative significance of the specified technical factors to each other, but does not indicate the relationship between those technical factors and price. 34 To be sure, the USPS Purchasing Manual states that a solicitation must indicate both the relative significance of the identified technical evaluation factors and the relationship of those factors to the cost or price factors. USPS PM 2.1.10.b. The Purchasing Manual further provides that the relationship between technical and price factors should be stated in general terms, e.g., that price will be considered to be more important, less important, or as important as the technical evaluation factors. USPS PM 2.1.10.d. In this case, neither Section 2.4 nor the Contract Award provision expressly states such a relationship between technical and price factors. Indeed, the primary areas language upon which Guilford relies does not discuss price factors at all. Thus, although the Purchasing Manual instructs the contracting officer to state in the solicitation the relative importance of technical factors as compared to price, the solicitation in this case does not include such a statement. 5 35 Based on our independent reading of the solicitation as a whole, we conclude that the plain language of the solicitation does not set forth the relationship between price and technical factors to be used in the best value determination. This is not an ambiguity, as there is no language in the solicitation susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. As noted, the list of primary areas makes no mention of price factors, and it is therefore unreasonable to interpret that provision as stating any relationship between price and technical factors. And because the solicitation does not contain ambiguous language, we may not look to the extrinsic evidence cited by Guilford, such as the MP-III Purchase Plan, which is an internal USPS document not available to offerors, and the USPS's course of conduct in previous postage stamp procurements. 36 The USPS's decision in Novadyne Computer Systems, Inc., P.S. Protest No. 90-49 (Nov. 9, 1990), does not compel a different interpretation. In that case, Novadyne contended that the contracting officer erred by giving greater weight to technical factors than price factors in a best value determination. The USPS General Counsel denied Novadyne's bid protest, concluding that three passages in the solicitation showed that technical factors were more important than price. One of those passages stated that [t]he primary areas to be used in determining which proposal is most advantageous to the Postal Service are listed below in Section M.8 in descending order of importance; Section M.8 then listed only technical evaluation factors. Admittedly this language is quite similar to the primary areas provision in the MP-III solicitation. The Novadyne solicitation, however, contained another passage stating that [t]echnical superiority will be the governing factor in award. This explicit language, or anything similar, is absent from the MP III solicitation, and therefore the case before us is easily distinguished from the Novadyne decision. In any event, neither this court nor the Court of Federal Claims is bound by Novadyne, a decision by the USPS General Counsel. 37 Guilford relies heavily on what it refers to as the Government's admission that the contracting officer erred by weighing price and technical factors equally, contrary to the Government's interpretation of the solicitation as requiring more weight to be placed on technical factors. At trial, the Government took the position that it was bound by the Novadyne decision to interpret the MP-III solicitation as placing greater weight on technical factors than price factors due to the similarity of the language stating the primary areas to be used in making a best value determination. The Government continues to take this position on appeal, yet acknowledges that the Court of Federal Claims was not bound by Novadyne, and readily admits that the solicitation in Novadyne contained additional language upon which the USPS General Counsel relied. 38 As discussed above, the Novadyne decision is distinguishable, so we cannot accept the Government's view that the USPS decision in that case controls here. Furthermore, contrary to Guilford's assertion, the Government has not made a factual admission; rather, it has taken a litigation stance on an issue of law — the interpretation of the solicitation. Guilford's attempt to convert the Government's position to a binding judicial admission fails for at least two reasons. First, Guilford erroneously argues that the Government's position is relevant to resolve a latent ambiguity in the solicitation. As previously discussed, the solicitation is not ambiguous. Second, even if we held the solicitation to be ambiguous and looked to extrinsic evidence to determine the Government's intent at the time of drafting, see Dureiko v. United States, 209 F.3d 1345, 1356 (Fed.Cir.2000), the Government's position is merely a legal theory developed during litigation, not a contemporaneous interpretation of the solicitation. 39 The question remains whether the contracting officer's decision to weigh technical and price factors equally had a rational basis in view of the solicitation's silence regarding the relationship between the technical and price evaluations. It is well-established that contracting officers have a great deal of discretion in making contract award decisions, particularly when, as here, the contract is to be awarded to the bidder or bidders that will provide the agency with the best value. See TRW, Inc. v. Unisys Corp., 98 F.3d 1325, 1327-28 (Fed.Cir.1996); E.W. Bliss Co. v. United States, 77 F.3d 445, 449 (Fed.Cir.1996); Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. v. Bentsen, 4 F.3d 955, 958-59 (Fed.Cir.1993). The issue here is whether the contracting officer acted within the scope of that discretion. 40 The trial court cited a number of GAO bid protest cases holding that when a solicitation indicates that price will be considered, without explicitly indicating the relative weight to be given to price versus technical factors, price and technical considerations will be accorded approximately equal weight and importance in the evaluation. CardioMetrix, B-258108, 94-2 C.P.D. ¶ 191 (1994); see also Logicon RDA, B-252031, 93-2 C.P.D. ¶ 179 (1993); B-233384, 89-1 C.P.D. ¶ 240 (1989); Actus Corp./Michael O. Hubbard, B-225455, 87-1 C.P.D. ¶ 209 (1987). While neither the USPS nor this court is bound by those decisions, we conclude that they provide a reasonable interpretation of a solicitation that does not explicitly state the relative weights of technical and price factors. In view of those decisions, the contracting officer in this case made a reasonable judgment when he considered price and technical to be approximately equal and ultimately concluded that the additional cost of Guilford's proposal would not offset its strong technical evaluation. 41 Because we conclude the contracting officer committed no error by according technical and price factors equal weight, we need not address the second part of Guilford's argument — that it was prejudiced by the application of incorrect evaluation criteria. Consequently, we need not consider whether the Government is correct that, even if the solicitation gave technical factors more weight than price, the contracting officer could have or would have made the same award decision, and therefore Guilford has not demonstrated prejudice.