Court Opinion

ID: 9793940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:55:30.778738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:08:17.131643
License: Public Domain

*872BURKE, J.
I dissent. If this case had involved an ordinary muncipal construction contract, I would concur without reservation in the view that a “relative superiority” test is inappropriate to determine the “lowest responsible bidder,” as that phrase is used in applicable charter or statutory provisions. It seems evident to me, however, that the management contract here at issue was more in the nature of a contract for services as a consultant and supervisor-manager, and that in the award of such contracts the governing board may properly consider a number of factors in addition to the amount bid in discharging its responsibility.
In the instant case, the services to be rendered by the management contractor may be likened to those provided by the Authority’s architectural firm, and indeed those services were proposed by the architect to complement its own services in preparing final plans and specifications and in supervising the work of construction, in an attempt to provide the city and the Authority with the most efficient and desirable construction at the lowest cost. The management contractor was to perform no actual work of construction nor furnish any materials, labor, supplies or equipment for the project. All of such work and materials were to be let. out to bid to the lowest responsible bidders in subsequent bidding under the traditional bidding procedure applicable to ordinary lump sum contracts. At the time when Swinerton was chosen as the management contractor, only the preliminary plans for the project had been prepared; bids for the actual work of construction were to await completed final plans and specifications, which the management contractor would assist in preparing.
As the majority acknowledge, strict compliance with competitive bidding requirements need not be maintained in procuring an expert’s services to prepare plans and specifications. (Kennedy v. Ross, 28 Cal.2d 569, 581 [170 P.2d 904] [engineer retained to prepare plans for sewage treatment and disposal plant].) As noted in San Francisco v. Boyd, 17 Cal. 2d 606, 620 [110 P.2d 1036], “The employment of a person who is highly and technically skilled in his science or profession is one which may properly be made without competitive bidding.” In San Francisco, the approved employment was of a civil engineeer to aid in the solution of traffic and transit problems. (See also Cobb v. Pasadena City Bd. of Education, 134 Cal.App.2d 93, 95 [285 P.2d 41].)
I do agree, however, that the management contract in the instant case contains certain provisions, such as the “guaranteed outside price” clause, which justified the Authority’s action in requiring that contract to be competitively bid. Yet as the management contract is more in the nature of a contract for expert services than an ordinary lump sum construction *873contract, I would construe the applicable competitive bidding provisions liberally to provide the Authority the broadest discretion consistent with protecting the taxpayers from fraud, favoritism or collusion. The bid evaluation system used by the Authority in the instant case, permitting it to consider the respective quality, fitness and capacity of bidders in accordance with preselected and announced, objective standards and criteria, satisfactorily met the competitive bid requirements in this case.
The majority opinion accurately describes the elaborate rating and evaluation system used by the Authority to determine which bidder would be chosen as the “lowest responsible bidder.” I would emphasize that every bidder was given advance notice of the bid evaluation system; bidders were told that an award would be made on the basis of the bidder’s financial resources, surety and insurance experience, construction experience,' completion ability, personnel, equipment and work load, as well as the amount of the bid. On the basis of the information received from, the bidders, bids were evaluated or rated in accordance with a uniform point system reflecting the performance capabilities of each bidder. In short, the evaluation system employed in the instant case seems well suited to achieve an accurate assessment of the bidder’s qualifications while minimizing the risks of favoritism or collusion. It is significant that at no time prior to the bid opening did Argo or any of the bidders object to the method of evaluating or awarding bids or to- the method of bid solicitation. And nothing in the record suggests that the Authority may have acted with an improper motive in awarding the contract to Swinerton.
As the majority concede, the term “lowest responsible bidder” is broad enough to include the attributes of quality, fitness and capacity to perform. (See Raymond v. Fresno City Unified Sch. Dist., 123 Cal.App.2d 626, 629 [267 P.2d 69]; Swanson v. Hilderbrand, 94 Cal.App.2d 161, 164 [210 P.2d 95]; Cyr v. White, 83 Cal.App.2d 22, 27-29 [187 P.2d 834]; Hodgeman v. City of San Diego, 53 Cal.App.2d 610, 615-616 [128 P.2d 412]; West v. Oakland, 30 Cal.App. 556, 560-561 [159 P. 202]; 10 McQuillan, Municipal Corporations, §§ 29.73, 29.73a, pp. 423-425, 429-430.)1 In the context of the “hybrid” management contract involved *874herein, I see no reason whatever for denying the Authority the right to evaluate, on the basis of objective criteria selected and announced, in advance of bid solicitation, the quality, fitness and capacity of the respective bidders, and to award that contract to the bidder shown by application of those criteria to be the best qualified.
I would hold that the Authority’s award to Swinerton was. within its powers and did not constitute an abuse of its discretion. Accordingly, I would annul the trial court’s judgment in its entirety.
Wright, C. J., and McComb, J., concurred.

 As stated in the West case, “There are many occasions in the experiences of municipal government when the quality of the thing to be supplied in the course of the public service depends upon conditions which differentiate bidders, and require the exercise of a sound discretion on the part of city officials in determining whether the wares or device which each individual bidder offers in the form of his own exclusive design are such as will meet the particular requirements of the intended work. In order to cover such cases it is quite usual in the provisions of city charters to *874find such terms as ‘lowest and best bidder,’ or as ‘lowest responsible bidder,’ and the like; and these phrases have been given by the courts a particular meaning, in which it must be presumed they are used by the framers of city charters in the absence of other limiting clauses. The term ‘lowest responsible bidder’ has been held to mean the lowest bidder whose offer best responds in quality, fitness, and capacity to the particular requirements of the proposed work; and that where by the use of these terms the council has been invested with discretionary power as to which is the lowest responsible bidder, having regard to the quality and adaptability of the material or article to the particular requirements of its use, such discretion will not be interfered with by the courts in the absence of direct averments and proof of fraud. [Citation.]” (30 Cal.App. at p. 560.)