Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...ng into a contract with Gulf. At trial in May 1980, the court ruled in favor of Liberty County and Gulf and the injunction was dissolved. Baxter's appealed and the district court in March 1981 found that Gulf's failure to bid on Alternate A violated section 336.44, Florida Statutes (1979), the competitive bid statute for the construction of county roads....

...NOTES [1] All construction and reconstruction of roads and bridges, including resurfacing ... shall be let to contract to the lowest responsible bidder by competitive bid... . § 336.41(3), Fla. Stat. (1979). Such contract shall be let to the lowest competent bidder... . § 336.44(2), Fla. Stat. (1979). The commissioners may reject any or all bids and require new bids to be made. § 336.44(5), Fla....

...f ... fraud or misconduct on the part of the county commissioners... ." Wester v. Belote, supra, 138 So. at 726. Here, Gulf's failure to comply with the bid specifications constituted a clear violation of the competitive bid statute applicable here, Section 336.44, Florida Statutes (1979), [1] in that the deviations in Gulf's bid were material....

...Even if this finding is correct, it has no bearing upon the competitive advantages that Gulf may have obtained by its not bidding on one of the required alternates. Bids on public contracts must conform closely with the published specifications provided in Section 336.44, Florida Statutes, as a prophylactic measure....

...s complaint in order to allege such damages as are consistent with this opinion, and that a hearing be held to determine the proper amount of damages to be awarded against Liberty County. BOOTH AND JOANOS, JJ., concur. NOTES [1] We construe Sections 336.44(2) and (3), when read together, as preventing county commissioners from accepting bids which deviate materially from published specifications....

...uld waive a minor defect when awarding a contract." Ante at 329. Virtually no difference, however, exists between the statutory discretion of the DOT to reject all bids and the authority of a county to reject bids for road construction. Compare *331 Section 336.44(5), Florida Statutes, governing the construction of county roads: "The commissioners may reject any or all bids and require new bids to be made", with Section 337.11(3), Florida Statutes, regarding the construction of all roads designa...

...ith the County in the past, and some considered it a plus if a firm was owned and operated by a minority. Both parties agreed that the relevant statutes are section 255.20, in the chapter entitled "Public Property and Publicly *449 Owned Buildings," section 336.44, "County Road System," and section 336.41, which is referenced by section 336.44....

...(3) All construction and reconstruction of roads and bridges ... to be performed utilizing the proceeds of the 80 percent portion of the surplus of the constitutional gas tax [2] shall be let to contract to the lowest responsible bidder by competitive bid.... 336.44 Counties; contracts for construction of roads; procedure; contractor's bond.— (1) The commissioners shall let the work on roads out on contract, in accordance with s. 336.41(3). (2) Such contracts shall be let to the lowest competent bidder.... (3) Upon accepting a satisfactory bid, the commissioners shall enter into a contract with the party whose bid has been accepted. §§ 255.20(1), 336.41(1), (3), 336.44(1)-(3), Fla.Stat. (1999). The plaintiffs contended that section 336.44, by reference to section 336.41(3), requires the County to let road construction contracts utilizing gas tax funds to "the lowest responsible bidder" and that the new procedure is contrary to this requirement as it excludes qualified bidders and makes responsibility a competitive factor. The trial court disagreed, rendering an eight-page judgment in favor of Broward County. In short, the court found that the new bidding procedure did not violate the provisions of chapter 336. The judge reasoned that, although section 336.44 required the project to be awarded to "the lowest competent bidder by competitive bid," there was nothing in the statute which required that every qualified bidder be permitted to bid....

...e methods which are inconsistent with general law. Section 255.20, Florida Statutes, authorizes the award of contracts by a variety of methods, some of which would include the type *451 of short-listing procedure used here, while sections 336.41 and 336.44, which are specific to county road and bridge projects, require that the contract "be let to the lowest responsible bidder" and "to the lowest competent bidder," respectively....