An Evaluation the Solicitation Did Not Authorize

Represented a health information technology contractor in an appeal from the Court of Federal Claims, which had denied a post-award protest of a multiple-award contract for clinical data migration services. The protest challenged the agency's technical evaluation as inconsistent with the solicitation's stated criteria. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding the evaluation departed from the announced basis for award and that the departure prejudiced the client, and remanded for consideration of injunctive relief.

The Procurement and the Protest

The solicitation sought clinical data migration and interoperability services across a multi-site health system operated by a federal agency. It identified technical approach as significantly more important than price and specified three technical subfactors with stated relative weights. The client submitted the highest-rated proposal under two subfactors. Award went to a lower-rated, lower-priced offeror. The client protested, and the Court of Federal Claims denied relief on the administrative record.

Evaluation Departing From Stated Criteria

An agency must evaluate proposals against the criteria it announced. The narrow question was whether the source selection authority had credited the awardee for a migration methodology the solicitation did not identify as a subfactor, while discounting the client's advantage under a subfactor the solicitation did identify. The trial court read the record as reflecting permissible judgment. The team's position was that the reasoning documented in the source selection decision could not be reconciled with the solicitation's own weighting.

Reconstructing the Evaluation Record

The administrative record ran to roughly 340,000 pages, including evaluator worksheets, consensus reports, and technical interchange correspondence across two evaluation rounds. The team indexed the record by subfactor and evaluator to trace how each rating moved between the initial consensus and the final source selection decision. That sequencing showed where the unstated methodology criterion first appeared and where the client's subfactor advantage was set aside.

The Federal Circuit's Ruling

The Federal Circuit reversed. The court held that the agency's evaluation rested in part on a criterion the solicitation did not announce, which is not a matter committed to agency discretion. On prejudice, the court held the client had shown a substantial chance of award absent the error, given its ratings under the stated subfactors and the solicitation's weighting of technical approach over price. The case was remanded for the Court of Federal Claims to consider injunctive relief.

Outcome and Significance

The remand returned the client to a position to seek corrective action on a procurement it had been excluded from for over a year. The ruling reinforces that a solicitation's stated evaluation scheme binds the agency that wrote it, and that a source selection decision resting on an unannounced criterion is reviewable rather than insulated as discretionary judgment. The reasoning applies across negotiated procurements where technical subfactors carry defined relative weights.