Opinion
December 16, 1985
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Robbins, J.).
Judgment reversed, on the law, with one bill of costs, determination confirmed and proceeding dismissed on the merits.
While Special Term properly found that the bid specifications advertised by the appellant board of trustees were clear, we disagree with its holding, in effect, that the specifications required the use of "packerbody" garbage trucks in the performance of the contract. The published bid specifications for the contract awarded to appellant Daniel Finley Allen Co., Inc., merely required that all vehicles used in the performance of the contract "be completely enclosed and so constructed as to prevent dripping of liquids onto streets or public or private property". Therefore, the fact that the appellants agreed, subsequent to the award of the contract, to allow appellant Daniel Finley Allen Co., Inc., to use vehicles other than a "packerbody" type vehicle, is not a ground, in and of itself, to annul the contract and reopen the bidding. Such a remedy would only be required if this subsequent agreement allowed for a material alteration of the published bid specifications which "impair[ed] the interests of the contracting public authority" or placed the successful bidder in a position of unfair economic advantage (see, Matter of Cataract Disposal v Town Bd., 53 N.Y.2d 266, 272; Le Cesse Bros. Contr. v Town Bd., 62 A.D.2d 28, affd 46 N.Y.2d 960). The record does not reveal that the appellant board of trustees acted arbitrarily or capriciously in its determination that the vehicle, with certain modifications, which appellant Daniel Finley Allen Co., Inc., later proposed to use in performance of the contract, would meet the specifications, requiring a "completely enclosed" vehicle. Brown, J.P., Rubin, Lawrence and Kooper, JJ., concur.