Affholder, Inc. v. MITCHELL ENGINEERING, INC.

Plaintiff Affholder, Inc. (Affholder), a subcontractor, appeals from a judgment entered in favor of defendant Mitchell Engineering, Inc. (Mitchell or Mitchell Engineering), a prime contractor, on its complaint for a violation of the Subletting and Subcontracting, Fair Practices Act (Pub. Contract Code, § 4100 et seq.) (the Act or Subcontracting Act). Affholder contends that the trial court erred in granting Mitchell summary judgment because there is a triable issue as to whether Mitchell improperly refused to award Affholder a subcontract on a public works project after the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (the district), the awarding authority, issued a change order affecting the work to be performed on the project. We conclude that summary judgment was properly granted because the change order deleted the work for which Affholder had submitted a bid, and the district determined that the change order relieved Mitchell of its statutory obligation to enter a subcontract with Affholder.

Factual and Procedural History

In October 2004, Mitchell submitted a bid to the district to be the prime contractor for the Bradshaw Interceptor: Bradshaw Pipeline and Road…