Court Opinion

ID: 9857290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 14:28:29.201148+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:25.969358
License: Public Domain

Justice HOENS,
dissenting.
The statutes that govern local public contracts, see N.J.S.A. 40A:11-1 to -51, and in particular those that create the arena in which bids are solicited and contracts are awarded, represent the Legislature’s careful balance of rights and responsibilities based on its consideration of a variety of important public policies. Terminal Constr. Corp. v. Atlantic County Sewerage Auth., 67 N.J. 403, 409-10, 341 A.2d 327 (1975) (identifying public policy objectives of public bidding statutes); Camden Plaza Parking, *648Inc. v. City of Camden, 16 N.J. 150, 159, 107 A.2d 1 (1954) (describing function and purpose of bid specifications on public contracts); see George Harms Constr. Co. v. N.J. Tpk. Auth., 137 N.J. 8, 36, 644 A.2d 76 (1994) (extending public policy rationale of Local Public Contracts Law to Turnpike Authority’s specifications). Viewed as a whole, those statutes ensure that the process of bidding and the award of contracts for work to be paid for by the taxpayers will be conducted in an orderly fashion by imposing clear rules that govern every important aspect of the process.
An integral part of the way in which the Legislature has chosen to bring order and regularity to the process of public contracting is found in the statute that forms the basis for this dispute. See N.J.S.A. 40A:11-13. There, in language that is both plain and clear, the Legislature has designated the manner, timing, and methods by which objections or challenges to bid specifications are permitted to be made. By using the phrase “prospective bidders,” the Legislature employed language that is both a well-understood term of art in the construction industry and that is used elsewhere in the statutory scheme in consonance with that accepted meaning. See, e.g., N.J.S.A. 52:35-2 (referring to prospective bidders on public contracts as those “proposing to submit bids”); N.J.S.A. 40A:11-16 (referring to award of contract to lowest responsible bidder). That the language is clear is a point on which the majority and I agree.
My disagreement with the majority arises from the conclusions reached by my colleagues that this statutory language is merely a timing limitation, and that it is one that affects only prospective bidders. As a result, I find myself unable to agree with the majority’s further conclusion that our standing rules permit one who could not have been a bidder and is not a taxpayer to nevertheless prevent a contract from being awarded by challenging the bid specifications. I do so for three reasons.
First, the fact that the Legislature specifically limited a challenge about the bid specifications to a prospective bidder implies that it intended to require such a challenge to be made early *649enough in the process that it will not interfere with the preparation, submission, and opening of qualifying bids. Cloaking plaintiff, or other suppliers, with the right to pursue such a challenge through a standing analysis will not further any of the purposes of that orderly bidding procedure. Nor will it serve to advance the larger public purposes that we have long recognized through our conclusion that taxpayers have standing to dispute a contract award.
Second, it seems to me that the Legislature, fully cognizant of the fact that the taxpayers, in particular, have standing to protect their interests through a challenge, used the limiting language that it chose because it concluded that there would be no lack of oversight by affected or interested individuals. In light of the fact that the Legislature selected language that is clear, I would give full force and effect to what appears to be its public policy choice about who may interpose a challenge to a bid specification and when it must do so.
Third, as a practical matter, there is nothing in the majority’s analysis that limits the right of any potential supplier, however large or small, to commence a challenge to the bid specifications. Although the majority refers to “clear, identifiable, substantial and real interest in the outcome,” ante at 647, 964 A.2d at 803, as the benchmark, that standard would, in theory, permit any would-be supplier to mount its challenge. Surely, any potential supplier seeking to alter the bid specifications would be able to point to a sufficient interest to meet that test, because to each such entity, the outcome of the challenge can easily be described in terms of an effect on the entity’s business that is clear, identifiable, substantial, and real. Even if the effort is ultimately unsuccessful, empowering such a wide variety of putative challengers creates the very real possibility of significant delay in public contracting and threatens to interfere with the orderly system that the Legislature envisioned and that the statute seeks to impose. Nor, for that matter, is the scope of the relief created by the majority limited by time. Instead, the majority embraces the Appellate *650Division’s characterization of N.J.S.A. 40A:11-13 as a “statute of limitations,” ante at 642, 964 A.2d at 799, applicable only to prospective bidders. Therefore, according to the majority’s analysis, the section apparently does not limit others, including plaintiff, at all. That approach leaves open the possibility that a true prospective bidder, having missed the three-day deadline, could importune a supplier to file its challenge, thus sidestepping the limitations on its right to challenge those specifications that the majority recognizes the Legislature intended to establish.
The process of creating specifications, soliciting bids, and awarding public contracts best serves the public when it is conducted in accordance with the carefully constructed, orderly procedures that the statutory scheme envisions. Because I am concerned that the majority’s decision to open the door to challenges by potential suppliers both interferes with that well-established system and has the potential for throwing the bidding process into a kind of chaos that our Legislature surely sought to avoid, I respectfully dissent.
Forreversal/reinstatement/remandment — Justices LaVECCHIA, ALBIN, WALLACE and RIVERA-SOTO — 4.
For dissent — Justice HOENS — 1.