612 A.2d 147 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1991
The following interesting issue has arisen out of a motion by the defendant Lane Construction *203 Company (defendant) to strike the plaintiff's amended complaint. Does the doctrine providing that an unsuccessful bidder has no standing to challenge, by way of injunction or mandamus, the award of a public contract, except where the bidding official has been guilty of fraud or corruption, preclude an action for damages by the unsuccessful bidder against the successful bidder who has completed the contract, which suit claims fraudulent interference with advantageous business relations and violation of Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA)?
On April 28, 1991, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint against the defendant. In the first count the plaintiff alleged that the defendant tortiously interfered with the plaintiff's expectancy of a contact bid for the rehabilitation of a runway at Bradley International Airport by submitting a fraudulent bid. The second count alleged that the fraudulent bid was in violation of CUTPA. The gravamen of the plaintiff's complaint is that but for the defendant's fraudulent misrepresentations, the plaintiff would have been awarded the bid.
The defendant has moved to strike the plaintiff's complaint claiming that the plaintiff has no recognizable legal or equitable interests in the public bid contract which can be protected in a suit for tortious interference with business expectancy or a CUTPA claim.
Two Connecticut Supreme Court cases are juxtaposed by this motion to strike. In Ardmare Construction v. Freedman,
One year later in Sportsman Boating Corporation v. Hensley,
Are the Ardmare Construction Co. v. Freedman, supra, and Sportsman Boating Corporation v. Hensley, supra, mutually inconsistent? No, they are not. Ardmare represents the view of those states that do not wish to unduly delay government process and has utilized the concept of standing in injunctive actions to enforce that *205
policy decisions in deference to comity between different branches of the government. Even Connecticut, in its deference to the executive bidding process recognized that there are limits to the no injunctive relief concept. Injunctive relief is acceptable and there is standing for such relief where the bidding process has been infected by impropriety of the bidding official. Spinello Construction v. Manchester,
The recognition of the availability of the torts of interference with advantageous business relations and unfair trade practices in the context of the bidding process will not interfere with the bidding process or unduly delay government process but rather may strengthen that process by eliminating deception by bidders. That principle has been recognized in a number of Federal Cases. Integrity Management International, Inc. v. Tomb Sons, Inc.,
Accordingly, the motion to strike is denied.