Mike Moore's 24-Hour Towing v. City of San Diego

The City of San Diego (the City) awarded five-year contracts for vehicle towing in nine separate districts. The losing bidders in three of these districts, Mike Moore’s 24-Hour Towing (Moore), Tom Moynahan, and H. M. Sevel, Inc. (sometimes collectively the Moore group), filed protests with the San Diego City Council (City Council), which heard them at a council meeting. (San Diego Mun. Code (SDMC), § 22.0513.) The Moore group protested that the bids of the prevailing bidder in those three districts, San Diego Police Tow Operators, Inc. (SDPTO), should have been disqualified for ten specified omissions in its bid. Moore also contended that its own bid should not have been disqualified as incomplete. The City rejected the protests and the Moore group filed this petition for writ of mandate. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1085.) The trial court rejected Moore’s claim that its bid should have been found complete, but accepted the argument of the Moore group that a fair hearing had not been held before the City Council because the evidence presented at the hearing included a misrepresentation by City staff that there were no material omissions in the SDPTO bid. The trial court remanded…