No Material Defect in Bid for 3-Week Old Certifications

New Jersey's Public bidding laws were enacted to protect the taxpayer by providing an even playing field for public construction projects (such as school construction), and mandating the project be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder.  Taken from a recent opinion, a plaintiff submitted the lowest bid for work to be performed at a public school and the defendant submitted the third-lowest bid for the project.  However, the school board decided to "review" the bids after bidding closed and subsequently disqualified plaintiff (and the second-lowest bidder) because those bid submissions included certifications from subcontractors which were used in a prior round of bidding for the same project, three weeks prior.  Thus the board awarded the defendant the construction project.
 
Plaintiff filed suit and the trial court judge reversed the school board's decision, and anointed the plaintiff the lowest responsible bidder. The trial judge found that the three-weeks old certifications were not a material defect but were rather a minor defect which did not cause the parties to be on unequal footing when submitting their respective bids.  Further, the plaintiff's bid would save the taxpayers nearly $190,000 verses the defendant.  An appeal was filed by the defendant seeking to be reinstated as the lowest responsible bidder but the Appellate Division rejected the attempt and adopted the trial judge's reasoning.
 
This highlights two important reminders to the bidders for public contracts: pay attention to the details in your submissions, and mere technical defects should not override the public policy of saving the taxpayer money.   (Thassian Mechanical Contracting, Inc. v. East Brunswick Board of Education and Hanna's Mechanical Contractors, Inc.)