Caddell Construction Company, Inc., B-280405, August 24, 1998

B-280405 Aug 24, 1998 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights When the Chief of Contracting for the Louisville District accepted Caddell's proposal (noting that it was late) from Caddell employees who had been denied entry to Room 821 when the doors to that room were locked by agency personnel at 4:30 p.m. Counters that the evidence does not support Caddell's contention that its employees reached Room 821 prior to 4:30 p.m. and maintains that agency personnel did not use different times or prematurely lock the door to the room where proposals were to be submitted. Is a large space broken up by numerous cubicles. Which is a glass door opening onto a hallway. On the receptionist's desk is a telephone with a digital clock. The official time used by the contracting division is that kept by the time/date stamp machine. View Decision Matter of: Caddell Construction Company, Inc. File: B-280405 Date: August 24, 1998 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Caddell Construction Company, Inc. protests the rejection of its proposal as late under request for proposals (RFP) No. DACA27-98-R-0020, issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, for construction of the 3rd Brigade Barracks Complex, Phase III, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. /1/ We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP required offerors to submit their original proposals, and the requisite number of copies, to Room 821 of the Corps of Engineers offices at 600 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Place (the Federal Building), Louisville, Kentucky, no later than 4:30 p.m. local time, April 21, 1998. RFP at A-1, L-7. The solicitation included the full text of the late proposal provision of the standard "Instructions to Offerors--Competitive Acquisition (Oct 1997)," Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Sec. 52.215-1(c)(3). RFP at L-3. The agency received a proposal from Bill Harbert Construction Company prior to the 4:30 p.m. closing time, /2/ but maintains that it did not receive Caddell's proposal until after 4:30 p.m., when the Chief of Contracting for the Louisville District accepted Caddell's proposal (noting that it was late) from Caddell employees who had been denied entry to Room 821 when the doors to that room were locked by agency personnel at 4:30 p.m. The Corps subsequently rejected Caddell's proposal as late because its late submission did not meet any of the criteria of FAR Sec. 52.215-1(c)(3) for acceptance of late proposals. Caddell then filed an agency-level protest, which the Corps denied on June 9. This protest followed. Caddell contends that its employees reached the door to Room 821 with its proposal at 4:29 p.m., and thus prior to the 4:30 p.m. deadline, but that agency personnel did not allow Caddell to timely submit its proposal because they prematurely locked the door to Room 821, apparently because they earlier used one clock to advise a Caddell representative of the time (which he used to synchronize his watch while finalizing Caddell's proposal), but then used a different time-keeping device to determine that the proposal submission deadline had passed. Caddell attributes the incident to the lack of an "official clock" in plain view, on which the Corps could base its determination that the deadline had arrived and by which offerors could verify the time. The Corps, supported by the intervenor, Harbert, counters that the evidence does not support Caddell's contention that its employees reached Room 821 prior to 4:30 p.m. and maintains that agency personnel did not use different times or prematurely lock the door to the room where proposals were to be submitted. In view of the inconsistencies among the protester's, the agency's, and the intervenor's accounts of the events of April 21, our Office conducted a hearing at the Corps's offices in Louisville to ascertain the facts and to assess the credibility of the respective parties' witnesses to the events of that day. The reception area of Room 821, which contains the contracting offices of the Louisville District, is a large space broken up by numerous cubicles. A receptionist's desk faces the main door to Room 821, which is a glass door opening onto a hallway. On the receptionist's desk is a telephone with a digital clock, a personal computer, and a time/date stamp machine which audibly clicks on the minute every 60 seconds as the minutes advance. Hearing Transcript (Tr.) at 5-10. The official time used by the contracting division is that kept by the time/date stamp machine. Tr. at 5-6, 216, 269; Agency Report at Para. 4. The time/date stamp machine does not have a clock face. Protest at 9 n.1; Agency Report at Para. 4, 26. The receptionist, Connie Senne, testified that to tell the time she synchronizes the time/date stamp machine with the digital clock displayed on her telephone (hereinafter "clock"). Tr. at 5-8, 269-70.