Sarver v. County of Los Angeles

[188]

HENSHAW, J.

Plaintiff, a taxpayer of the county of Los Angeles, sought by his action an injunction to restrain the supervisors of the county from entering into a contract for the construction of certain steel cells within the county jail. The substance of his complaint is that the county advertised for bids for the work to be performed, as it was required to do under subdivision 8 of section 4041 of the Political Code. This section in empowering boards of supervisors “to cause to be erected, or rebuilt, or furnished, a courthouse, jail, hospital, . . . and such other public buildings as may be necessary,” prescribes that in so doing they shall advertise for bids and let the contract to the lowest responsible bidder and shall erect or construct “none of the aforesaid buildings . . . until the plans and specifications have been made therefor and adopted by the board.” It is charged that bids were duly advertised for pursuant to the plans adopted and that upon the opening of the bids the board of supervisors arbitrarily and in defiance of law refused to award the contract to the lowest responsible bidder, but announced its intention to award the contract to the Pauly Jail Building Company, whose bid was over six thousand dollars in excess of that of the lowest responsible bidder. The board of supervisors made answer that, while they had adopted general plans and specifications for the proposed work, still from its nature it was impossible to formulate complete plans and specifications, and this because of the different kinds of material which could be employed, of the varying advantages or disadvantages in patented locking devices and for many other like reasons not necessary here to set forth in detail; that the character of the work was, therefore, such as called for the exercise of discretion upon the part of the board in awarding the contract and that in the exercise of this discretion and for the benefit of the county and its taxpayers it was decided to award the contract to the Pauly J ail Building Company.

Upon the filing of this answer plaintiff moved for and obtained a judgment upon the pleadings and defendants appeal.

The question presented upon appeal is whether the work for which bids were received was of a character which made it compulsory upon the board to award the contract, based upon plans and specifications previously adopted, to the low