PLEASANT HILLS CONST. CO. v. PUBLIC AUDITORIUM AUTH.
| Decision Date | 29 November 2001 |
| Citation | 567 Pa. 38,784 A.2d 1277 |
| Parties | PLEASANT HILLS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC. and Gary C. Hartman, v. PUBLIC AUDITORIUM AUTHORITY of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, Limbach Company, Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Club and Dick Corporation/ Barton Malow Company, Appeal of Public Auditorium Authority of Pittsburgh. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
James Michael Doerfler, Pittsburgh, for Public Auditorium Auth. of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.
John Michael Klutch, Gerard J. Cipriani, Pittsburgh, for Pleasant Hills Const. et al.
Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO, NEWMAN and SAYLOR, JJ.
This Court granted the Petition for Allowance of Appeal of Appellant Sports and Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County ("SEA," formerly the Public Auditorium Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County) to resolve the issue of the proper bidding procedures to be employed in the construction of Redevelopment Assistance Capital Projects authorized in a capital budget itemization act on or before June 25, 1999. ("RACPs"). For the following reasons, we hold that the only requirements for bidding on RACPs are those set forth in Section 318 of the Capital Facilities Debt Enabling Act ("CFDEA"), Act of February 9, 1999 (P.L. 1, No. 1), 72 P.S. §§ 3919.101-3919.5102. Under the CFDEA, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is authorized to make Redevelopment Assistance Capital Grants for large economic development projects in the Commonwealth. Chapter 5 of the CFDEA addresses sports facility financing and specifically provides for grants of Commonwealth funds to a municipality or authority for the purpose of renovating or constructing sports facilities. See 72 P.S. §§ 3919.591-3919.510.
SEA obtained public funds under the CFDEA for the construction of PNC Park, the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, and the project (the "Stadium Project") was designated an RACP.1 SEA solicited bids for the plumbing and heating/ventilation/air-conditioning ("HVAC") portions of the Stadium Project, directing contractors to submit separate bids for plumbing and HVAC as well as a joint bid for the two types of work. In a July 19, 1999 addendum to the bid package, SEA informed potential bidders that:
The procedures to be used to competitively bid construction work on the PNC Park project under the provisions of Act One of 1999 and Senate Bill 572, as adopted by [SEA] are made a part of this bid package.
R.R. 198. "Act One of 1999" refers to the CFDEA, which has only one section that addresses bidding procedures. Specifically, Section 318(f) of the CFDEA provides as follows:
(f) Bids.—The solicitation of a minimum of three written bids is required for all general contracted work in redevelopment assistance capital projects.
72 P.S. § 3919.318(f). The reference in the bid package addendum to "Senate Bill 572" is a reference to the Capital Budget Project Itemization Act for 1999-2000, Act of June 25, 1999 (P.L. 237, No. 35) ("Act 35"), approved by Governor Thomas Ridge on June 25, 1999. Section 22 of Act 35 provides:
Act of June 25, 1999 (P.L. 237, No. 35), at § 22 (emphasis added.)
On August 5, 1999, in response to the bid solicitation, Appellee Pleasant Hills Construction Co., Inc. ("Pleasant Hills") submitted a $6,154,700.00 bid for the plumbing project only. A second bidder, Limbach Company, submitted both a $15,400,000.00 bid for the combined plumbing/HVAC contract and a separate $8,100,000.00 bid for the plumbing contract alone. On August 16, 1999, SEA awarded the combined plumbing/HVAC contract to Limbach. On August 16, 1999, Pleasant Hills and its president, Gary C. Hartman, filed a Complaint in Equity with the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, alleging that SEA's award of the contract to Limbach violated the Public Auditorium Authorities Law, 53 P.S. §§ 23841-23857, which requires that contracts be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder, id. § 23851A, and the Separations Act, 53 P.S. § 1003, which requires separate contracts for plumbing and heating work. Pleasant Hills and Hartman asked the court to enjoin SEA from contracting with any other entity for the plumbing work. In response, SEA argued, inter alia, that the plain language of Section 22 makes clear that the CFDEA sets forth the sole bidding procedures applicable to RACPs and that other laws regulating bidding on publicly funded projects, with the express exception of the Steel Products Procurement Act, do not apply. SEA therefore took the position that in completing the bidding on the Stadium Project, it was only required to obtain a minimum of three written bids for all general contracted work and comply with the Steel Products Procurement Act, both of which it had done.
After conducting a hearing on the injunction request, the trial court refused to nullify the SEA Limbach contract, but enjoined SEA "from hereafter awarding any contract for any construction project or modifying any existing contract without first complying with the Separations Act..." and the requirement that [SEA] contract only with the "lowest responsible bidder." SEA appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
On August 10, 2001, the Commonwealth Court issued a decision, affirming the trial court and specifically holding that (1) the bidding requirements for the Stadium Project were not limited to that set forth in the CFDEA, and (2) SEA was also obligated to comply with the bidding requirements in the Separations Act and the Public Auditorium Law. Pleasant Hills Constr. Co. v. Public Auditorium Auth. of Pittsburgh, 782 A.2d 68 (Pa.Cmwlth.2001). In reaching this conclusion, the Commonwealth Court cited the definition of "bid" in Black's Law Dictionary, and held that that the word "bidding" in Section 22 referred only to the solicitation part of the bidding process, not to the entire public contracting process. 782 A.2d at 77-79. According to the court, to conclude otherwise would permit Sections 318 and 22 to repeal by implication the bidding requirements of the Separations Act and Public Auditorium Law at least insofar as they applied to RACPs. Id. Noting that implied repeals are not favored by the law and are ordinarily only permitted in certain limited circumstances not present here, the court concluded that in the absence of explicit repeal language, it could not find that a repeal of the Separations Act and Public Auditorium Law had been either intended or accomplished. Id. The Commonwealth Court nevertheless recognized that it needed to attribute some meaning to the "notwithstanding any other law to the contrary" language in Section 22, and thus stated that the language "could arguably nullify a conflicting law that permitted SEA to award a contract based on less than three bids." Id. at 79.
SEA filed a Petition for Allowance of Appeal with this Court, limited to the issue of whether the Commonwealth Court erred in holding that the CFDEA did not set forth the "sole and exclusive" requirements for bidding on RACPs, and that SEA was required to comply with the bidding requirements in the Separations Act and Public Auditorium Law. We granted allocatur and now reverse. As the foregoing makes clear, this appeal turns on the meaning of a single statutory phrase: "Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, the requirements of section 318 of the [CFDEA] shall provide the sole and exclusive requirements for bidding for the construction or renovation of a[n RACP]." In interpreting this provision, our goal "is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly." 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(a). "When the words of a statute are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing its spirit." 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921(c).
Here, the words of the statute are clear and unambiguous: In spite of what other laws or statutes provide regarding bidding, the sole and exclusive bidding requirements on RACPs are those set forth in Section 318 of the CFDEA, i.e., solicitation of a minimum of three bids for general contract work and compliance with the Steel Products Procurement Act. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth Court, under the guise of "statutory interpretation," took it upon itself to rewrite the statute, essentially replacing the word "bidding" with the phrase "the solicitation of bids." It then "interpreted" Section 22 to state that Section 318 provides the sole and exclusive requirements for only the solicitation of bids, not the whole bidding process, which begins with bid solicitation, but also includes bid acceptance and evaluation, and culminates in the awarding of contracts to successful bidders. We simply cannot agree with this conclusion. Had the General Assembly intended to communicate that Section 318 provides the "sole and exclusive" requirements for soliciting bids, it seems logical that it would have used some form of the word "solicit" in Section 22. In drafting Section 22 and cross-referencing Section 318, the General Assembly was undoubtedly aware of the distinction between Section 318(f)'s reference to the "solicitation of ... bids" and the term "bidding" in Section 22, and intentionally omitted any reference to "solicitation" in Section 22. Accordingly, we conclude that the General Assembly did...
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