West Bay Builders v. Standard Elevator

Filed 5/3/06 West Bay Builders v. Standard Elevator CA1/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

West Bay Builders, Inc. (West Bay) sued Standard Elevator Co., Inc. (Standard Elevator), doing business as Standard Metal Fabrication (Standard Metal), and the president and managing officer of Standard Elevator, Nari Ramchandani (Ramchandani), for extra costs incurred to complete work the listed contractor, Standard Metal, did not perform. West Bay had entered a bid for a contract with the San Ramon Valley Unified School District (district), which the district accepted. West Bay's bid was based on a bid from Standard Metal for the steel work to be completed, but West Bay substituted a different subcontractor to perform the work at a higher price after it learned that Standard Metal did not have a license to do this work.

Standard Elevator and Ramchandani (collectively, Standard Elevator or Standard Metal) filed a cross-complaint against West Bay for breach of contract and for violating the Public Contract Code listing and substitution requirements. Standard Elevator alleged that its removal was improper and it did not receive proper notice of the substitution hearing.

The matter proceeded to a court trial and the court ruled in favor of West Bay on both the complaint and the cross-complaint. It awarded West Bay $119,901 in damages. More than 180 days lapsed between the trial court's entry of judgment and Standard Elevator's filing of its notice of appeal. We therefore dismiss the appeal as being untimely.

BACKGROUND

West Bay received bids from specialty subcontractors prior to presenting its general contract bid to the district for the construction of the Meadows Middle School in Danville, California (school project). West Bay received bids from specialty subcontractors for the performance of discrete portions of the work.

On May 13, 1999, West Bay received a subcontractor bid by facsimile from Standard Metal for steel work under Division 5 of the specifications for the school project. The name on the bid was Standard Metal and below its address and phone number was the license number 662734. The bid was signed by Ramchandani on behalf of Standard Metal. The bid from Standard Metal included a price of $761,000, and it stated the following: â€