Opinion ID: 2327680
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Sufficiency of the Allegations

Text: We also agree with ECI that the trial court failed to conduct an in-depth examination of the plaintiffs' allegations to determine whether they were sufficient to support a colorable claim of injury. See footnote 23 of this opinion. As previously noted, [w]hen a . . . court decides a jurisdictional question raised by a pretrial motion to dismiss, it must consider the allegations of the complaint in their most favorable light. . . . In this regard, a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader. . . . The motion to dismiss. . . admits all facts which are well pleaded, invokes the existing record and must be decided upon that alone. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gold v. Rowland, supra, 296 Conn. at 200-201, 994 A.2d 106. The record includes supporting affidavits that contain undisputed facts. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) May v. Coffey, supra, 291 Conn. at 108, 967 A.2d 495. In the present case, we conclude, upon an examination of the allegations in the underlying complaint, [23] together with the affidavits and stipulations of fact provided in support thereof, that ECI made the colorable factual showing that was missing in Associated Builders & Contractors. See footnote 17 of this opinion. It is undisputed that ECI submitted a bid on both construction projects, thus satisfying the first part of the standing test. ECI also sustained its burden under the second part of the test because the complaint, the supporting affidavits and other evidence, considered in their most favorable light, contained detailed allegations as to the discriminatory effect of the PLA requirement on ECI and other nonunion contractors. Specifically, paragraph thirty-seven of the complaint alleges twelve ways in which the PLA requirement would severely impair ECI's ability as a nonunion contractor to successfully perform work on the projects and place ECI at a competitive disadvantage relative to union contractors bidding on the same projects. Similarly, in his affidavit dated March 25, 2009, William J. Flynn, Jr., ECI's vice president for nearly fifteen years, describes how the PLA requirement would penalize ECI, or any other nonunion contractor, their field employees and taxpayers by significantly increasing labor costs and how the alleged harm would be ongoing. Finally, in their joint affidavit dated March 23, 2009, which draws on four studies conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, concerning PLAs and the cost of public school construction in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, David G. Tuerck [24] and Paul Bachman [25] apply the studies' findings to the PLA requirement in the present case and describe how it would drive up project construction costs by limiting competition and imposing costly work and hiring rules on nonunion contractors. In their affidavit, Tuerck and Bachman also describe how the area labor market analysis for the Hartford public school system, produced by the Fluor Corporation in March, 2003, for the purpose of recommending the most appropriate labor posture for the public works projects under consideration, recommended the use of PLAs without any analysis of cost, schedule, or quality impacts from imposing a mandatory PLA in Hartford and without any evidence that actual union disruptions of previous school construction projects had led to delays or increased costs in Connecticut such that PLAs were necessary to foster school construction in a more economical and efficient manner. [26] Accordingly, we conclude that ECI's allegations, as supplemented by the supporting affidavits and evidence in the record that the PLA requirement would have a discriminatory effect on ECI and other nonunion contractors, were sufficient to satisfy the second part of the standing test, which requires a colorable claim that fraud, corruption, favoritism or other conduct has seriously undermined the objective and integrity of the competitive bidding process. Insofar as the nonstate defendants insist that ECI provided insufficient evidence to establish that it has standing, we disagree. One need only examine the reasons why the court in Associated Builders & Contractors concluded that the association did not have standing to understand why ECI in the present case does. In Associated Builders & Contractors, this court explained that the association had failed to make a colorable factual showing under the second part of the standing test because it had provided no explanation as to how the alleged increased expense to some potential bidders would raise the costs of the overall project, the record did not support the association's claim that cost considerations [had] precluded nonunion general contractors from participating in the bidding process, and [t]he association [had] presented no testimony . . . that government projects using [PLAs] had higher total costs than other similar projects without such a requirement. Connecticut Associated Builders & Contractors v. Hartford, supra, 251 Conn. at 187 n. 12, 740 A.2d 813. In other words, the complaint in Associated Builders & Contractors alleged a violation of the competitive bidding laws in the most general, conclusory terms, without any allegations as to the specific effects of the PLA requirement on the association and other nonunion contractors. [27] In the present case, the lengthy allegations in the complaint and the supporting affidavits of Flynn, Tuerck and Bachman provided such information. Accordingly, we conclude that ECI made a colorable claim of injury [28] and that the trial court has subject matter jurisdiction in this matter. [29] B