Archives > 2008 > November 2008 > Judge Nullifies California SCBA Contract

November 2008

The largest fire department contract for self-contained breathing apparatus in United States history was declared void by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge in late October.

“The bid selection process was flawed, and the court must remand the matter back to the county to either begin the process anew or to re-evaluate all of the bids pursuant to the terms of the [request for proposals],” Judge James Chalfant wrote in his ruling.

The request for proposals from a consortium of 32 fire departments produced bids in April from Interspiro, Mine Safety Appliances (MSA), Scott Health & Safety and Sperian Fire. The selection process was supposed to be based 50 percent on price and 50 percent on performance.

On June 2 Los Angeles County officials announced that the contact for 4,200 SCBA units would be awarded to Sperian through its distributor, L.N. Curtis & Sons of Los Angeles.

The decision was challenged administratively and in court by Scott through its distributor, Allstar Fire Equipment of Arcadia, Calif., and by MSA. Both companies contended the bid selection process was unfair because officials did not follow the law or their own rules.

“Curtis was neither the low bidder nor the highest rated in the performance evaluations,” Allstar declared in its legal complaint.

Allstar said the selection process was compromised in a number of ways, among them that tests were designed to give Curtis and Sperian an advantage and that performance reviews of SCBA by firefighters were discounted by two members of a five-member committee overseeing the scoring ­– Los Angeles City Battalion Fire Chief Daniel McCarty and Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Clint Kaller.

In his Oct. 21 ruling, Judge Chalfant declared that the process was not fair in a number of respects. Regarding the performance reviews by firefighters, he wrote, “The undisputed evidence is that the committee agreed to use one scoring system, and McCarty and Kaller used a plus/minus system which enabled them to skew the outcome. This is a failure to follow an agreed upon methodology… adherence to this methodology was important for a fair evaluation of the equipment.”

With regard to MSA, Judge Chalfant wrote, “Despite the fact that MSA was the lowest bidder and initially had the highest overall combined score, it did not receive the contract due to the arbitrary and capricious nature of the bid process.”

However, he said MSA’s request that it be awarded the contract was not appropriate.

“The court does not have the power to direct the award of the contract to any entity,” the judge wrote, “but it does have the power to direct the agency to follow its own rules or the law when it has a ministerial duty to do so and has abused its discretion.”

Los Angeles County, the lead agency in the SCBA bid selection process, was represented in court by Elizabeth Friedman of the county counsel’s office. She said the judge’s order was under review.

“We are considering our options, and we aren’t sure what all those options are at this point,” she said. “It’s a complicated situation.”

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 17.

Sperian issued a statement saying the judge’s order voiding the contract jeopardizes $9.5 million in federal grant funding, which was approved to purchase SCBA to gain interoperability on a regional basis.

The statement quoted Sperian Vice President Bill Sokol. “In raising technicalities about the bid process,” he said, “Allstar and MSA have put profits ahead of protection, and the result may well be that some firefighters won’t get the critical lifesaving equipment they want and need.”

The SCBA contract was valued at more than $20 million.