BNUMBER: B-280405
DATE: August 24, 1998
TITLE: Caddell Construction Company, Inc., B-280405, August 24, 1998
**********************************************************************
Matter of:Caddell Construction Company, Inc.
File:B-280405
Date:August 24, 1998
Timothy Sullivan, Esq., and Katherine S. Nucci, Esq., Adduci,
Mastriani & Schaumberg, for the protester.
Edward P. Meyerson, Esq., and Stanley W. Logan, Esq., Berkowitz,
Lefkovits, Isom & Kushner, and Laurence Schor, Esq., McManus, Schor,
Asmar & Darden, for Bill Harbert Construction Company, an intervenor.
Carlton A. Arnold, Esq., and Robert W. Pessolano, Esq., Department of
the Army, for the agency.
Adam Vodraska, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Contracting agency reasonably rejected hand-carried proposal as late
where a preponderance of the evidence establishes that the protester
did not deliver the proposal to the designated location prior to the
time set for closing.
DECISION
Caddell Construction Company, Inc. protests the rejection of its
proposal as late under request for proposals (RFP) No.
DACA27-98-R-0020, issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Louisville District, for construction of the 3rd Brigade Barracks
Complex, Phase III, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.[1]
We deny the protest.
BACKGROUND
The RFP required offerors to submit their original proposals, and the
requisite number of copies, to Room 821 of the Corps of Engineers
offices at 600 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Place (the Federal
Building), Louisville, Kentucky, no later than 4:30 p.m. local time,
April 21, 1998. RFP at A-1, L-7. The solicitation included the full
text of the late proposal provision of the standard "Instructions to
Offerors--Competitive Acquisition (Oct 1997)," Federal Acquisition
Regulation (FAR)
sec. 52.215-1(c)(3). RFP at L-3.
The agency received a proposal from Bill Harbert Construction Company
prior to the 4:30 p.m. closing time,[2] but maintains that it did not
receive Caddell's proposal until after 4:30 p.m., when the Chief of
Contracting for the Louisville District accepted Caddell's proposal
(noting that it was late) from Caddell employees who had been denied
entry to Room 821 when the doors to that room were locked by agency
personnel at 4:30 p.m. The Corps subsequently rejected Caddell's
proposal as late because its late submission did not meet any of the
criteria of FAR sec. 52.215-1(c)(3) for acceptance of late proposals.
Caddell then filed an agency-level protest, which the Corps denied on
June 9. This protest followed.
Caddell contends that its employees reached the door to Room 821 with
its proposal at 4:29 p.m., and thus prior to the 4:30 p.m. deadline,
but that agency personnel did not allow Caddell to timely submit its
proposal because they prematurely locked the door to Room 821,
apparently because they earlier used one clock to advise a Caddell
representative of the time (which he used to synchronize his watch
while finalizing Caddell's proposal), but then used a different
time-keeping device to determine that the proposal submission deadline
had passed. Caddell attributes the incident to the lack of an
"official clock" in plain view, on which the Corps could base its
determination that the deadline had arrived and by which offerors
could verify the time. The Corps, supported by the intervenor,
Harbert, counters that the evidence does not support Caddell's
contention that its employees reached Room 821 prior to 4:30 p.m. and
maintains that agency personnel did not use different times or
prematurely lock the door to the room where proposals were to be
submitted.
In view of the inconsistencies among the protester's, the agency's,
and the intervenor's accounts of the events of April 21, our Office
conducted a hearing at the Corps's offices in Louisville to ascertain
the facts and to assess the credibility of the respective parties'
witnesses to the events of that day.
The reception area of Room 821, which contains the contracting offices
of
the Louisville District, is a large space broken up by numerous
cubicles.
A receptionist's desk faces the main door to Room 821, which is a
glass door opening onto a hallway. On the receptionist's desk is a
telephone with a digital clock, a personal computer, and a time/date
stamp machine which audibly clicks on the minute every 60 seconds as
the minutes advance. Hearing Transcript (Tr.) at 5-10. The official
time used by the contracting division is that kept by the time/date
stamp machine. Tr. at 5-6, 216, 269; Agency Report at para. 4. The
time/date stamp machine does not have a clock face. Protest at 9 n.1;
Agency Report at
para. 4, 26. The receptionist, Connie Senne, testified that to tell the
time she synchronizes the time/date stamp machine with the digital
clock displayed on her telephone (hereinafter "clock"). Tr. at 5-8,
269-70. She explained that to do so she sticks a piece of paper into
the time/date stamp machine, obtains a stamp of the time
(hours/minutes), sets the clock 1 minute ahead of the time/date stamp,
and then activates the clock when she hears the time/date stamp
machine click to the next minute, ensuring that when the time/date
machine next clicks the clock will read the same hour and minute. Tr.
at 8-9, 269-70. Ms. Senne testified that on the day proposals were
due, April 21, she did not need to adjust the time on her clock with
the time of the time/date stamp machine because they were already
synchronized. Tr. at 298.
Across from the receptionist's area in Room 821 near the door to the
hallway is the cubicle of Linda Hunt-Smith, a contract specialist who
was the designated proposal receiving agent for this RFP. Her desk
holds a telephone with a digital clock and her personal computer. Tr.
at 12-13. Ms. Hunt-Smith testified that when she first arrived at
work on the day proposals were due she called the time service on the
telephone and checked it with the time/date stamp, her computer, and
her clock to verify that all times read the same. Tr. at 214. To
verify that the time/date stamp machine was synchronized with her
clock, Ms. Hunt-Smith had Ms. Senne insert a piece of paper in the
time/date stamp machine and read aloud the time indicated on the
resulting stamp. Tr. at 213. When the machine clicked to the next
minute, Ms. Hunt-Smith obtained another readout from Ms. Senne of the
time on the time/date stamp machine in order to verify that their
clocks read the same.
Tr. at 214. Both Ms. Senne and Ms. Hunt-Smith testified that they
checked the synchronization of Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock in this manner
several times on
April 21. Tr. at 11-12, 214.
At approximately 3 p.m., two Caddell employees, Dick Greaves and James
Gage, arrived at Room 821 of the Corps's offices, introduced
themselves to the receptionist, and were directed to Ms. Hunt-Smith.
Tr. at 73-75, 138-40. The Caddell employees asked Ms. Hunt-Smith to
see the official bid opening clock but she responded that there is no
official clock.[3] Tr. at 75, 140-43. She told them that she had
just set her own clock by calling the time on the telephone and that
at 4:30 p.m. she would lock the door to Room 821 and not accept any
more proposals. Tr. at 75-76, 141-42. When Mr. Greaves asked Ms.
Hunt-Smith what time her clock had, she glanced to the left of her
computer (at her telephone clock) and said that it was 3:13 p.m. Tr.
at 75-76, 142, 173. The Caddell representatives did not see her clock
but Ms. Hunt-Smith stated that she gave them the synchronized time she
had on her clock. Tr. at 75-76, 142, 173, 216, 271-72. Mr. Greaves
synchronized his watch by setting it to 3:13 p.m. based on the time
Ms. Hunt-Smith told him. Tr. at 76, 142-44; Protest at 3.
Mr. Greaves then asked Ms. Hunt-Smith if he and Mr. Gage could use a
room to finish preparing Caddell's proposal and, after checking, Ms.
Hunt-Smith led the Caddell employees to the bid opening room, Room
809, approximately 20 feet down the hall from Room 821. Tr. at 76,
144; Protest at 3. Once in the bid opening room, Mr. Greaves used his
cellular telephone to make several calls to his company and at about
4:10 p.m. was told by the company president to call back at 4:15 p.m.,
at which time the final prices would be provided. Tr. at 83, 146-51;
Protest at 3. Because he had a few spare minutes, Mr. Greaves
returned to Room 821, where he again asked Ms. Hunt-Smith for the
time. Tr. at 83, 152-54. She told him that the time was 4:12 p.m,
Tr. at 154, which was consistent with the time on Mr. Greaves's watch.
Protest at 3-4. Ms. Hunt-Smith testified that when she told Mr.
Greaves this time she was looking at her telephone clock and that she
also verified this time with Ms. Senne. Tr. at 217, 236-37. Mr.
Greaves returned to the bid opening room and telephoned the company
president at 4:20 p.m., who provided the names of subcontractors to be
used in the proposal and the final prices. Tr. at 155-57; Protest at
4. As indicated by telephone records from Caddell's cellular phone
carrier, this telephone call was completed at about 4:25 p.m. and the
Caddell employees proceeded to finish preparing the proposal.[4] Tr.
at 157-60. They kept the doors to this room shut while they did so.
Tr. at 83-84.
As 4:30 p.m. approached, Ms. Hunt-Smith, Ms. Senne, and two other
Corps employees, Contract Specialist Lisa Frazier and Procurement
Technician Janet Lee, were in the reception area of Room 821
discussing among themselves whether Caddell would get its proposal in
on time. Tr. at 218, 240-41, 272-73, 315, 335, 344-45, 354. Ms.
Hunt-Smith then sat at her desk, and when she heard the time/date
stamp click and observed her clock change to 4:29 p.m., decided to
notify the Caddell employees of the time. Tr. at 218-19, 355. She
left her cubicle, opening the door leading into the hallway and called
out, "It's 4:29. Are there any other proposals?" Tr. at 218-19,
242-43, 273, 319-20, 335, 355, 399. This was also witnessed by two
Harbert employees, who were returning to Room 821 after submitting
their proposal to see if any other offerors were submitting proposals.
Tr. at 219, 398-99.
What happened next is in dispute. According to the accounts of Ms.
Hunt-Smith and the other Corps employees, after Ms. Hunt-Smith
announced that it was 4:29 p.m., she waited in the hallway briefly,
then proceeded to walk down the hallway, disappearing from the view of
the other employees in Room 821. Tr. at 218-19, 273, 319-20, 335,
355. Ms. Hunt-Smith claims that she then opened the door to Room 809,
went in, faced the Caddell employees, and asked them, "Are you going
to turn in your proposal?" (they answered "Yes") and stated to them,
"It was 4:29 when I left the door and the clock was still ticking."
Tr. at 220, 249-251. The Harbert employees, who were standing in the
hallway, testified that Ms. Hunt-Smith opened the door to Room 809,
announced that it was 4:29, shut the door, and walked back to Room
821. Tr. at 178-79, 399, 431. The Caddell employees deny that Ms.
Hunt-Smith opened the door to Room 809 and came in and warned them of
the time, Tr. at 443, 446-47, but state that they did hear a voice in
the hallway shout, "It's 4:29!" Tr. at 88, 106, 115, 159-60, 176.
During Ms. Hunt-Smith's absence, Ms. Senne observed the time/date
stamp machine click from 4:29 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., which her clock
confirmed. Tr. at 273, 276-77, 310. Then Ms. Senne, who is
responsible for locking the door to Room 821 for the day at the 4:30
p.m. close of daily office hours, considered whether she should do so
in Ms. Hunt-Smith's absence. Tr. at 273. Lisa Frazier, who was in
Ms. Hunt-Smith's cubicle, observed the time on Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock
and on her computer read 4:30 p.m., and said out loud that the time
was 4:30 p.m. and that someone should lock the door. Tr. at 335-36.
Since no one appeared to be going to the door she proceeded to lock
it. Tr. at 273, 336. After she locked the door, Ms. Frazier heard
the time/date stamp clock click 4:31 p.m. Tr. at 336. This time
frame is confirmed by Ms. Senne, who witnessed Ms. Frazier lock the
door. Tr. at 273-74.
Meanwhile, the two Harbert employees who were waiting in the hallway
near Room 821 complained to Ms. Hunt-Smith as she returned that the
deadline for receipt of proposals had arrived. Tr. at 220-21, 400-01,
432. Ms. Hunt-Smith then returned to Room 821, found the door to the
room locked, knocked, and was admitted, she believes, by either Ms.
Frazier or Ms. Senne. Tr. at 221. Although it is not clear which
Corps employee unlocked the door to admit Ms. Hunt-Smith, she recalled
that either Ms. Senne or Ms. Frazier then said, "Well, you weren't in
here at 4:30 to lock the door and we waited until 4:31 and we locked
the door." Tr. at 221, 244-45. Ms. Senne observed from her desk that
the time was 4:31 p.m. when the door was locked and Ms. Hunt-Smith
returned. Tr. at 273-74. Ms. Hunt-Smith then sat at her desk,
observing that her clock read 4:32 p.m. Tr. at 221. Ms. Senne also
testified that the time/date stamp machine clicked to 4:32 p.m. Tr.
at 274. They then heard and saw the Caddell employees at the door.
Tr. at 221, 274, 326, 327. Ms. Hunt-Smith then went to the door and,
according to her, said through the locked door, "I'm sorry, but you're
late." Tr. at 221, 255. After the Caddell employees went back down
the hallway Ms. Hunt-Smith went to notify Joseph Theobald, the Chief
of Contracting for the Louisville District, about the situation. Tr.
at 222, 326-27, 372.
The Caddell employees testified that after they heard the voice in the
hallway announce that it was 4:29, they "scribbled in" the remaining
three prices on the last copy of the schedule, picked up their
proposal and "sprinted" to Room 821.
Tr. at 89-90, 159-60. They noticed the two Harbert employees waiting
outside Room 821 but did not see any Corps employees in the hallway.
Tr. at 90-91, 161. As Mr. Greaves drew close to Room 821, he heard
the door being locked. Tr. at 161. One of the Caddell employees
tried to push the door open and Messrs. Greaves and Gage observed
through the glass Ms. Hunt-Smith, with her hands in the air, backing
away from the locked door. Tr. at 92, 161-62. Mr. Greaves looked at
his watch and saw that the minute hand was not yet on 4:30 p.m. but
still on 4:29 p.m. Tr. at 92, 162; Protest at 4-5. Because the door
was locked, the Caddell employees were unable to enter the room to
view Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock or any other Corps time--piece to verify
the time. Tr. at 93, 162.
The Caddell employees returned to Room 809 and were joined by Mr.
Theobald. Tr. at 163. Mr. Theobald asked the Caddell employees what
had happened and they recounted the incident to him. Id. Mr. Greaves
told Mr. Theobald that no more than 30 seconds could have elapsed
between the time he heard the voice in the hallway shout "It's 4:29"
and the moment he heard the door lock click. Tr. at 113, 163. Mr.
Greaves also complained about the lack of an official clock. Tr. at
163-64. The Caddell employees requested that Mr. Theobald take their
proposal, which he did, but Mr. Theobald told them he would treat it
as late. Tr. at 164-65, 363.
ANALYSIS
It is an offeror's responsibility to deliver its proposal to the
proper place at the proper time, and late delivery generally requires
rejection of the proposal. The Staubach Co., B-276486, May 19, 1997,
97-1 CPD para. 190 at 3. In determining whether a proposal was submitted
late, we consider all relevant evidence in the record, including
statements by parties on behalf of the protester and the agency, to
ascertain whether a preponderance of the evidence shows that the
proposal was at the designated location for receipt prior to the time
set for closing. Med-National, Inc., B-277430, Sept. 8, 1997, 97-2
CPD para. 67 at 3; IPS Group, B-235988, Oct. 6, 1989, 89-2 CPD para. 327 at 2;
International Steel Erectors, B-233238, Feb. 13, 1989, 89-1 CPD para. 146
at 3.
A hand-carried proposal that arrives late may be considered if
improper government action was the paramount cause for the late
submission, and where consideration of the proposal would not
compromise the integrity of the competitive procurement process.
Med-National, Inc., supra, at 3. Improper government action in this
context is affirmative action that makes it impossible for the offeror
to deliver the proposal on time. Id. Even in cases where the late
receipt may have been caused, in part, by erroneous government action,
a late proposal should not be considered if the offeror significantly
contributed to the late receipt by not acting reasonably in fulfilling
its responsibility to deliver a hand-carried proposal to the proper
place by the proper time. International Steel Erectors, supra, at 4.
In our view it is within the agency's discretion to initially
determine whether or not it may have been the paramount cause of the
late receipt of a proposal, and our Office will not substitute its
judgment in this regard, but will review the reasonableness of the
agency's determination.
We agree with Caddell that the Louisville District has an "odd
timekeeping procedure" for receipt of proposals on RFPs. Hearing
Comments at 17. However, we disagree with Caddell that the Corps used
one basis (Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock) to inform Mr. Greaves of the time,
which he used to synchronize his watch, but used another basis (the
time/date stamp machine) for purposes of determining when the 4:30
p.m. deadline for proposal submission had arrived and for locking the
doors to Room 821. As described above, the time/date stamp machine
used to keep the official time and Ms. Hunt-Smith's telephone clock
were purportedly synchronized to read the same time. However, even
if, as the protester asserts, the Corps has failed to demonstrate that
its synchronization of the clocks was accurate, the record shows that
the agency's basis for determining Caddell's proposal late was not the
time/date stamp machine itself, but the clock on Ms. Hunt-Smith's
desk, the same clock used earlier by Ms. Hunt-Smith to tell Caddell's
representative, Mr. Greaves, the time, and which he used to
synchronize his watch.
Specifically, as described above, before venturing into the hallway to
announce "It's 4:29," Ms. Hunt-Smith observed that her clock read 4:29
p.m. While Ms. Hunt-Smith was out in the hallway, Ms. Frazier noticed
that the time had reached 4:30 p.m. on Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock and that
the doors to Room 821 should be locked. In this regard, the record
shows that this Corps's office standard procedure was to lock the
doors to the office at the close of business at 4:30 p.m., even when
proposals were due to be submitted by that time. Tr. at 243-44,
277-78, 322, 347. When Ms. Hunt-Smith returned to her cubicle she
observed that her clock read 4:32 p.m. before she heard Caddell's
employees at the door. Although the record indicates that these times
were verified by Corps employees on the basis of the time/date stamp
machine and Ms. Senne's clock, the record also shows that the basis
for locking the door to Room 821 and concluding that the time set for
closing had passed was Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock rather than the
time/date stamp machine itself (although the two time-pieces were
allegedly synchronized), notwithstanding the latter's status as the
keeper of the official time. Since Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock was used as
the common basis on which Mr. Greaves synchronized his watch and on
which the Corps locked the door to Room 821 at 4:30 p.m. and gauged
the time of arrival of Caddell's employees at the door, we find no
merit to Caddell's objection that a different time-keeping device was
used by the Corps to advise Caddell of the time than that used to
determine the closing deadline.
Caddell nonetheless maintains that the Corps failed to provide
offerors with an official clock in plain view, which could have been
used to prevent such incidents, despite the fact that the Corps was
aware that the lack of such a clock had caused similar problems in the
recent past. Protest at 14. While such a clock may be desirable and
commonly used elsewhere, as claimed by the protester, we are aware of
no requirement that the Corps have a clock in plain view to determine
deadline times for receipt of proposals, and the protester has cited
no supporting authority in this regard. Rather, in analogous
situations under advertised procurement procedures, the decisive event
in determining the time for bid opening is not the ticking of a clock,
but the agency's reasonable declaration of the start of bid opening
that demarcates the point in time at which a hand-carried bid will be
determined either timely or late. See Nueva Constr. Co., Inc.,
B-270009, Jan. 16, 1996, 96-1 CPD para. 84 at 4. Similarly, in negotiated
procurements, we have held that, unless it is shown to be
unreasonable, the contracting official's declaration that a
procurement is closed is determinative. See Pat Mathis Constr. Co.,
Inc., B-248979, Oct. 9, 1992, 92-2 CPD para. 236 at 3; Seer Publishing,
Inc., B-237359, Feb. 12, 1990, 90-1 CPD para. 181 at 6.
Here, whether or not Ms. Hunt-Smith actually entered Room 809 to warn
the Caddell employees that the time for submitting proposals was
almost up, the record shows that when she observed that the time was
4:29 p.m. by her clock, she decided to warn the Caddell employees
about the time, got up and opened the door to Room 821, stood in the
doorway, called out that the time was 4:29 p.m., walked down the
hallway to further warn Caddell, returned to Room 821, locked the door
(after initially finding the door locked and being admitted back into
the room where other employees explained to her that they waited until
after 4:30 to lock the door), returned to her cubicle, and observed
that her clock read 4:32 p.m. before hearing the Caddell employees at
the door. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that Ms. Hunt-Smith's
determination that the time for submission of proposals had
passed--her locking of the door and refusal to admit the Caddell
employees to the room--was premature or otherwise unreasonable. The
protester has not suggested any persuasive reason why Ms. Hunt-Smith
would announce "It's 4:29" before her clock actually displayed 4:29
p.m., or why she subsequently would lock the door to Room 821 prior to
4:30 p.m., especially after warning Caddell about the time, a courtesy
she was under no obligation to give.
We also find that the preponderance of the evidence does not show that
Caddell's proposal was at the designated location for receipt prior to
the time set for closing. In this regard, Caddell's self-serving
statement that when Mr. Greaves reached the locked door to Room 821
his watch read 4:29 p.m. is counterbalanced by the observations of
several Corps employees, who the record shows were keenly interested
in whether Caddell would submit its proposal on time, that Ms.
Hunt-Smith's clock reached 4:30 p.m. before the door was locked and
that the Caddell employees reached the door to Room 821 at 4:32 p.m.
Moreover, the record establishes that Mr. Greaves's synchronized his
watch, which had an analog dial but no second hand, only to the hour
and minute.[5] Tr. at 127, 183. Thus, when Mr. Greaves synchronized
his watch with the time on Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock, his watch could
have been off by almost a minute. For example, such a discrepancy
could have occurred if the time on Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock was actually
58 seconds into the minute of 3:13 p.m. and Mr. Greaves set his watch
to the beginning of that minute.[6] Since by Caddell's own admission,
Mr. Greaves watch indicated 4:29 p.m. when he and Mr. Gage reached the
door of Room 821, Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock could very well have already
reached 4:30 p.m., making the proposal late, notwithstanding that Mr.
Greaves's watch still read 4:29 p.m.[7]
While the Caddell employees claim that after they heard the voice in
the hallway announce "It's 4:29" it took them no longer than 30
seconds to fill in their last prices and take their proposal to the
door of Room 821 (and not the 3 minutes that would result in their
arrival at Room 821 at 4:32 p.m.), Tr. at 163, this does not mean they
tendered the proposal in a timely manner. In this regard, Caddell
does not dispute that when its employees heard the voice in the
hallway announcing "It's 4:29," that the time on Ms. Hunt-Smith's
clock had already reached 4:29 p.m.[8] Given that it obviously took
Ms. Hunt-Smith some time to leave her office and issue the warning, as
well as the conceivable difference described above in the
synchronization between Mr. Greaves's watch and the time used to
determine the proposal submission deadline, it is certainly possible,
if not likely, that Ms. Hunt-Smith's clock, from which Mr. Greaves had
synchronized his watch and which served as the basis for determining
the deadline for proposal submission, could have reached 4:30 p.m. by
the time the Caddell employees reached the door to Room 821.
While we cannot say definitively that Messrs. Greaves and Gage had not
reached Room 821 prior to 4:30 p.m., at least by Mr. Greaves's watch,
the preponderance of the evidence shows that Caddell's proposal was
not at the designated location for receipt prior to the time set for
closing, and Caddell's proposal was therefore reasonably rejected as
late. See Med-National, Inc., supra, at 12; IPS Group, supra, at 3.
The protest is denied.
Comptroller General
of the United States
1. This decision is made under our express option procedures, 4 C.F.R. sec.
21.10 (1998).
2. Besides Caddell, Harbert was the only firm that submitted a
proposal.
3. According to Ms. Hunt-Smith, the Caddell representatives were
advised that, although there is no official clock, there is an
official time, which was the time/date stamp, and that the clock on
her desk is synchronized to the time/date stamp machine. Tr. at 216,
232-233. Caddell disputes that its employees were told that the
official time was based on the time/date stamp machine or that the
clock on Ms. Hunt-Smith's desk was synchronized with it. Tr. at 86,
173.
4. There is, however, no evidence that the times shown on the
telephone bill were exactly the same as those on Mr. Greaves's watch
or on the time-pieces in the Corps's contracting division.
5. None of the time-keeping devices involved in this case--the
time/date stamp machine, Ms. Senne's and Ms. Hunt-Smith's telephone
and computer clocks, the telephone time service, and Mr. Greaves's
watch, provided time displays in seconds--they only indicated the hour
and the minute. Tr. at 13, 127, 305.
6. We note that, as described above, Mr. Greaves checked the time
again with Ms. Hunt-Smith and, according to him, the time she gave him
then was consistent with the time on his watch. However, Mr. Greaves
did concede the possibility that his watch could have been off by as
much as 20 seconds. Tr. at 202-03.
7. Because seconds may make the difference between the timely or late
submission of a proposal, it was unreasonable for Caddell not to take
into account such a narrow margin of error when synchronizing its time
to the agency's and not to turn in its proposal with sufficient time
to allow for possible variances in seconds between its time and the
time used by the agency. See generally Pat Mathis Constr. Co., Inc.,
supra, at 4 (by allowing itself less than 1 minute to assemble and
deliver its proposal, protester assumed the risk that any number of
events might intervene to prevent the timely submission of its
proposal).
8. Mr. Greaves did not look at his watch when he heard the
announcement from the hallway because "I guess when I heard 4:29 I
knew we were cutting it off close." Tr. at 159-60.