Allied Contractors, Inc. v. United States

• Decision Date: 05 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 93-60.,93-60.
• Citation: 310 F.2d 945,159 Ct. Cl. 548
• Parties: ALLIED CONTRACTORS, INC. v. The UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

159 Ct. Cl. 548, 310 F.2d 945 (1962)

ALLIED CONTRACTORS, INC. v. The UNITED STATES.

No. 93-60.

United States Court of Claims.

December 5, 1962.

Horace S. Whitman, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Alfred H. O. Boudreau, Jr., Washington, D. C., with whom was Acting Asst. Atty. Gen. Joseph D. Guilfoyle, for defendant.

WHITAKER, Judge.

Plaintiff's petition alleges that it made a mistake in its bid for the construction of the Protective Equipment Laboratory at the Army Chemical Center at Edgewood, Maryland, and that this mistake was known to the contracting officer. Accordingly, it asks us to reform the contract so as to increase its bid of $20,000 on item 2 of the contract to $55,042.00, which it says is the amount it should have bid and would have bid except for the mistake.

Plaintiff is represented by one of the most respected members of the bar of this court. For many years he has served his clients honorably and well. He has made an able presentation of this case, but we regret to say that we are of opinion plaintiff is not entitled to recover. It is not entitled to recover unless the mistake was mutual. There is no doubt that plaintiff made a mistake, but there can be no recovery unless defendant was aware of the fact that it had done so. A contract, of course, will not be reformed for a unilateral mistake.

To show that defendant was aware that plaintiff had made a mistake in its bid, plaintiff relies primarily on the fact that the next lowest bid on item 2 of the contract was almost two and one-half times its bid. There was a great discrepancy between plaintiff's bid on item 2 and the others. Plaintiff's was $20,000; the others were $49,918, $60,531, $70,000, $95,000 and $122,000. However, plaintiff's bid was only $1,140 under what defendant had estimated the work would cost.

So, the discrepancy between plaintiff's bid and the others did not put defendant on notice that plaintiff had made a mistake, since its bid was so close to the defendant's estimate of the cost.

The Invitation for Bids provided that the work would "be awarded as a whole to one bidder." Plaintiff's total bid was only $38,002 lower than the next lowest bid, and only $49,334 lower than the next lowest. This is not a great variance on a one-half million-dollar job. The contracting officer's attention was directed primarily to the overall bid; since on this basis plaintiff's bid was in line with others, there was nothing here to make the contracting officer suspect that plaintiff had made a mistake.

As we have said, there is no doubt that plaintiff did make a mistake. It was a little careless in getting a bid on some work which plaintiff desired to do by subcontract. Before putting in its bid, plaintiff's president, John J. Pecora, phoned the George H. Schuman Company, Inc., asking it to bid on a certain portion of the work, but the record is not clear as to just what part of the work was specified. At any rate, plaintiff thought the bid it received from Schuman over the phone covered the following items:

Section 25 (Plumbing and Piping);

Section 26 (Air Conditioning, Heating, Ventilating and Exhaust Systems);

Section 27 (Scrubber Tower and Tank); and

Section 34 (Steam Distribution System), except for steel supports and concrete required for the overhead steam lines.

Schuman did not think so. Plaintiff required of Schuman no written confirmation of its oral bid, as prudence would have required it to do. Schuman refused to do this work, and plaintiff had to get another subcontractor to do it, at a cost of $31,686.

After the bid opening, Pecora returned to his office and rechecked his bid calculations because he was concerned about the difference between his bid on item 2 and those of the other bidders. He found he had placed...