New Shawmut Timber Company, B-286881, February 26, 2001

B-286881 Feb 26, 2001 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights The agency reasonably concluded that there was doubt regarding whether the protester had offered to perform that aspect of the requirement. One of the seven species was listed as "hardwood. New Shawmut's was the apparent high bid but. The agency determined that the bid was nonresponsive. New Shawmut maintains that the agency's rejection of its bid was improper because. Although this price was below the stated minimum. Its bid nonetheless was responsive. The protester directs our attention to several prior decisions of our Office where we found that the Forest Service had improperly rejected a bid as nonresponsive where a line item price was below the minimum acceptable price by only a negligible amount. View Decision Matter of: New Shawmut Timber Company File: B-286881 Date: February 26, 2001 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION New Shawmut Timber Company protests the rejection of its bid as nonresponsive for the FR165 Re-Entry timber sale in the Allegheny National Forest, conducted by the Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. New Shawmut contends that its omission of a price for one of the line items did not provide a proper basis for rejecting its bid. We deny the protest. The prospectus for the sale called for the submission of sealed bids to purchase seven species of timber and included an estimated quantity and minimum acceptable price for each species. As pertinent here, one of the seven species was listed as "hardwood--other," with a minimum acceptable bid price of $1.90 per hundred cubic feet. The agency received five bids; New Shawmut's was the apparent high bid but, after reviewing it, the agency determined that the bid was nonresponsive, and rejected it, because it did not include a price for the "hardwood--other" line item. New Shawmut maintains that the agency's rejection of its bid was improper because, in effect, it bid zero for the "hardwood--other" line item. According to New Shawmut, although this price was below the stated minimum, its bid nonetheless was responsive. The protester directs our attention to several prior decisions of our Office where we found that the Forest Service had improperly rejected a bid as nonresponsive where a line item price was below the minimum acceptable price by only a negligible amount. E.g., Buildings By Thrift, Inc., B-215036, June 28, 1984, 84-1 CPD Para. 691. New Shawmut's argument mischaracterizes the issue here. To be responsive, a bid must constitute an unequivocal offer to perform the exact thing called for under the solicitation, such that acceptance of the bid will bind the contractor to perform in accordance with the material terms of the solicitation. Doug Jones Sawmill, B-239996, Sept. 19, 1990, 90-2 CPD Para. 233 at 2. The failure to include a price for a line item evidences a bidder's intent not to be bound or obligated to perform that element of the requirement, and thus generally renders the bid nonresponsive. Id. New Shawmut's failure to price the "hardwood--other" line item was not equivalent to a bid of zero for the item; rather, leaving its bid for that item blank rendered the bid equivocal regarding whether New Shawmut intended to obligate itself to perform that element of the requirement. The bid therefore properly was rejected as nonresponsive for this reason. /1/ In contrast, in the cases cited by the protester, since the bids included prices for all line items, the bidders--unlike New Shawmut--obligated themselves to perform the requirements of the line items. This left as the only issue the question whether the bid price was materially below the stated minimum; it was this issue that our decisions addressed. New Shawmut maintains that its bid falls into an exception under which a bidder may be permitted to correct a mistake where a bid on its face reflects a consistent pattern of pricing that both establishes the nature of the error and the intended bid. Doug Jones Sawmill, supra. New Shawmut contends that its bid evidences a consistent pattern of pricing because, for five of the six remaining line items, it rounded its price upward to the nearest dollar above the minimum acceptable bid price; thus, the protester concludes, since the "hardwood--other" line item had a minimum acceptable price of $1.90 per hundred cubic feet, its "mistake" of leaving it blank should be corrected to a price of $2 per hundred cubic feet. We disagree. First, there is nothing on the face of the bid that shows New Shawmut's failure to price the line item was a mistake rather than a business judgment. In any case, there was no clear pattern of pricing, since, as noted, New Shawmut did not round its price upward to the nearest dollar above the minimum acceptable bid price for all of the other line items. For the "black cherry" line item, the minimum acceptable price was $1,717.51 per hundred cubic feet, and New Shawmut bid $2,384.