New Jersey taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $10 million after the state Supreme Court upheld a decision to toss the lowest bid for a major bridge project over a paperwork error.
n a ruling released Monday, May 5, the justices voted 5-2 to back the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s decision to reject a $70.8 million bid from El Sol Contracting and Construction Corp. for failing to properly authorize a key legal document (see attachment).
El Sol’s bid was the lowest by nearly $10 million. But according to the Court, the company didn’t submit a valid Consent of Surety — a document that guarantees a bonding company will back a contractor if awarded a job. The issue? El Sol’s surety, Liberty Mutual Insurance, submitted a Power of Attorney that only covered the bid bond, not the Consent of Surety.
“Because of the defect in Liberty’s PoA, El Sol did not submit a CoS that validly bound Liberty to execute the Contract Bond, and its bid was therefore incomplete,” wrote Justice John Hoffman for the majority.
The project is part of a multi-year redecking effort to repair 11 bridges in the Newark Bay area. The contract was ultimately awarded to the second-lowest bidder — Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. — for $80.7 million in August 2024.
In a sharp dissent, Justice Douglas Fasciale slammed the decision, saying El Sol had followed the same bidding process it used on 13 previously accepted contracts. “The NJTA’s disqualification of El Sol is arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable,” he wrote, “and its findings are not supported by credible evidence in the record.”
