Armco Drainage & Metal Products, Inc. v. Pinellas County, 2429

• Citation: 137 So.2d 234
• Decision Date: 02 February 1962
• Docket Number: No. 2429,2429
• Parties: ARMCO DRAINAGE AND METAL PRODUCTS, INC., Appellant, v. COUNTY OF PINELLAS, Florida, Appellee. . Second District
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 234

137 So.2d 234

ARMCO DRAINAGE AND METAL PRODUCTS, INC., Appellant, v. COUNTY OF PINELLAS, Florida, Appellee.

No. 2429.

District Court of Appeal of Florida. Second District.

Feb. 2, 1962.

Thomas M. Carney; Goldner, Carney & Marger, St. Petersburg, for appellant.

Page S. Jackson, St. Petersburg, for appellee.

ALLEN, Judge.

Appellant, plaintiff below, is appealing from a summary judgment which denied its motion for same and ordered that its complaint be dismissed with prejudice.

On December 12, 1957, defendant county, by its purchasing agent, entered into an agreement by telephone with plaintiff whereby defendant agreed to purchase certain fabricated goods from plaintiff. Thereafter, on December 16, 1957, the verbal telephone order was confirmed by three purchase orders, copies of which are attached to the complaint. The purchase orders were for $838.38, $182.28 and $570.36 respectively and total $1,582.92. The requirements of § 125.08, F.S.A., calling for advertisement for bids for purchases by a county in excess of $1,000 were not complied with.

According to the three purchase orders, the goods furnished pursuant thereto were pieces of galvanized corrugated metal of varying dimensions. Said purchase orders reflect the same dates but have different order numbers. The goods were delivered to defendant and subsequently used in various county projects. Plaintiff's demand for payment was formally denied by the Board of County Commissioners and this suit followed.

At the hearing on motion for summary judgment the parties stipulated essentially to the above. The lower court found that there existed no genuine issue of material fact in that the contract reflected by the three purchase orders was entered into without compliance by defendant county with the mandatory requirements of § 125.08, F.S.A., and therefore there could be no recovery against the defendant on said contract. Implicit in the judgment is a finding that the transaction as a whole constituted one single contract and not three separate contracts as contended by plaintiff. Under § 125.08, only purchases by a county in excess of $1,000 need be preceded by advertisement and bids. In this case, each purchase order reflects an amount under $1,000; therefore the three purchase orders in question must have been found to constitute not three separate contracts but one single contract.

The purchase orders show the material purchased to be galvanized corrugated metal pipe-arch cut to various lengths of the type and kind that were susceptible to competitive bidding. The lower court determined it was a purchase order exceeding $1,000; that there was, in effect, one purchase and not three contracts each of which was less than $1,000.

Charles S. Rhyne, in his excellent book on Municipal Law, (1957) states at page 262, § 10-6:

'Competitive bidding in the granting of municipal contracts is employed for the protection of the public to secure by competition among bidders, the best results at the lowest price, and to forestall fraud, favoritism and corruption in the making of contracts. In making its contracts a municipal corporation need not advertise for bids and let to the lowest bidder in the absence of a charter or statutory requirement; nor need it let to the lowest bidder if, in the absence of the statutory requirement, it adopts a policy of advertising for bids. Generally, however, municipal corporations are required by law to award contracts in excess of a specified amount to the lowest responsible bidder.

'If competitive bidding is not only allowed but required by statute or charter, any contract awarded without competitive bidding is void and unenforceable. The same rule applies when a municipal ordinance requires competitive bidding. Accordingly, strict compliance with competitive bidding requirements is a condition precedent to the awarding of the contract. Generally speaking, it is up to the individual contractor to know whether or not the city must employ competitive bidding in awarding a particular contract, for he acts at his own peril since he is presumed to know the law. Thus, a contractor may not recover even on a quantum meruit basis, if the contract was let without compliance with mandatory competitive bidding requirements. The same rule applies to contracts which are void because of unlawful collusion among bidders.'

As authority that a contract awarded without competitive bidding is void and unenforceable, Mr. Rhyne cites, among other cases, the Florida case of Anderson v. Fuller, 51 Fla. 380, 41 So. 684, 6 L.R.A.,N.S., 1026 (1906).

In Anderson v. Fuller, supra, the Florida Supreme Court, in its opinion, said:

'The rule is well settled that, where the charter or incorporating act requires the officers of a city to award contracts for public works to the lowest bidder, a contract made in violation of its requirements is illegal and void, and that neither the municipality nor its subordinate officers can make a binding contract for such work except in compliance with the requirements of the law. 1 Dill. on Mun.Corp. (4th Ed.) § 466; Fulton v. City of Lincoln, 9 Neb. 358, 2 N.W. 724; Brady v. Mayor of City of New York, 20 N.Y. 312; Nash v. City of St. Paul, 8 Minn. 172 (Gil. 143); Maxwell v. Board of Supervisors, etc., 53 Cal. 389. The purpose and intent of the law in requiring such contracts to be let or awarded to the lowest responsible bidder for the work is to secure the public improvement at the lowest reasonable cost to the taxpayers. Therefore the incorporation into the advertisement for such bids, or into the specifications for the work upon which such bids are predicated, of illegal or unauthorized conditions or obligations upon the contractor, compliance with which on his part will necessarily and illegally increase the cost of the work, is not a letting of such contract to the lowest bidder and will render the contract illegal and void. * * *'

The Supreme Court of Florida in Robert G. Lassiter & Co. v. Taylor, 99 Fla. 819, 128 So. 14, 69 A.L.R. 689, stated that even though a contract for public improvements in a city has been completed, if the contract is illegal and void because it was made in violation of a charter or incorporating act containing a provision for the letting of contracts in excess of a stated amount to the lowest responsible bidder, a taxpayer of the municipality may maintain a bill filed to restrain the paying out of public moneys upon such contract. The Court, in its opinion said:

'The intent of the charter provision, requiring such contracts to be let or awarded to the lowest bidder for the work, is to secure the best improvement at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer and to prevent fraud, favoritism, and extravagance in the expenditure of public funds. 44 C.J. 324, 325; Anderson v. Fuller, supra; Inge v. Board of Public Works, supra [135 Ala. 187, 33 So. 678].

'The charter mandatorily required as a condition precedent to the making of the contract that it be let to the lowest responsible bidder. In cases where contract amounts to more than $200, section 13, article 8, of the city charter is a limitation, so to speak, upon the general power of the municipality to make contracts for public improvements. 3 McQuillin, Mun.Corps. 2620, 2621.

'Mr. McQuillin, in his work on Municipal Corporations (volume 3, pp. 2565, 2566) says: 'If the charter or the statute applicable requires certain steps to be taken before making a contract, and it is mendatory in terms, a contract not made in conformity therewith is invalid, and ordinarily cannot be ratified, and usually there is no implied liability for the reasonable value of the property or services of which the municipality has had...