Tutor-Saliba Gets Caltrans Contract After Judge Clears It
The California Department of Transportation has awarded a $177-million contract to embattled public works construction giant Tutor-Saliba Corp.
The action followed a ruling by retired Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Coleman F. Fannin, rejecting a competitor’s plea to block Tutor-Saliba from the job to rebuild approaches to the Bay Bridge. The competitor claimed Tutor-Saliba is unreliable.
Sitting as a hearing officer for Caltrans, Fannin wrote a 50-page decision released this week, declaring that Sylmar-based Tutor-Saliba is trustworthy and should get the job.
Tutor-Saliba was the lowest bidder, and Caltrans had been set to offer it the work until the next-lowest bidder, a joint venture called CC Myers/Balfour Beatty, filed a protest challenging Tutor-Saliba’s fitness.
The joint venture cited the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 2001 victory over Tutor-Saliba in a Superior Court trial over subway construction and a pending lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco concerning airport construction. Both cases center on government contentions that Tutor-Saliba submitted false claims in pursuit of payments. Tutor-Saliba denies having done so.
The MTA won a $30-million judgment against Tutor-Saliba in its case. But the verdict did not come on the merits of the MTA’s false-claims arguments. It instead was the result of punishment for what the trial judge said was Tutor-Saliba’s repeated failure to obey court orders to share its documents with the MTA. Fannin said that because Tutor-Saliba is appealing that verdict, he did not take it into account. Nor, he said, did he consider unproven allegations made by San Francisco.
However, he said, he considered documentary evidence, including a transcript of some testimony in the MTA case.
In key rulings, he found that:
* Testimony by a witness for the MTA was “less than credible.” The witness, a subcontractor executive, said Tutor-Saliba owner Ron Tutor encouraged him to make a false claim.
* Tutor-Saliba intended to build much of a subway station at night -- which it argued was important for convenience on busy Wilshire Boulevard -- as it contended in a claim to the MTA filed after night work was banned. Lawyers for the MTA contended that Tutor-Saliba falsified its multimillion-dollar claim in that it had not intended to do the work at night.
* Tutor-Saliba did not misuse minority business enterprises (MBEs). The hearing officer said there was no rule that barred Tutor-Saliba from claiming full credit for work it gave to one MBE, even though that MBE subcontracted part of the work to a non-MBE firm.
