Does the Pa. Steel Products Procurement Act apply to a project undertaken by a private non-profit entity for a university under the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education? According to a recent decision by the Commonwealth Court in the enforcement lawsuit brought by the Pa. Attorney General’s Office against various Ryco, Inc., entities (see my earlier post here about that lawsuit), the answer is yes.
In an opinion filed February 21, 2013, in the Ryco case, in response to objections raised by the Ryco entities, the Commonwealth Court (Judge Colins) has held that the Steel Act does apply to a student housing project undertaken for Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) by the Foundation for the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Foundation), a non-profit foundation affiliated with IUP.
The Ryco entities had argued that the Foundation was not a “public agency,” that the housing project was not funded with public money, and that the housing project was not bid as public contracts. In rejecting these arguments, the Commonwealth Court noted that the Steel Act does not require the owner to be a public agency, only that the project be a public work. Here, there was no legal question, in the Court’s view, that the student housing project was a public work.
The Commonwealth Court also noted that the Foundation itself was in fact a “public agency” under the Steel Act. The Foundation was created to promote educational purposes, including for the construction of buildings for IUP. The Foundation had been engaged by IUP to finance and construct the student housing project. The Court borrowed from caselaw interpreting the Prevailing Wage Act in finding that, under these facts, the Foundation was a “public agency” for purposes of application of the Steel Act. In the analagous Prevailing Wage Act case, the Court had held that a private, non-profit corporation created by a county for the purpose of building and operating a nursing home was a “public body.”
The lesson here for contractors working on what are potentially public works projects is to understand the full nature of project they are working on (even if they have only a small part of the project) and to think about the ultimate user/owner of the project. Here, it seems quite obvious that student housing for a state university has all of the hallmarks of a public works project to which the Steel Act would typically apply.
The Commonwealth Court’s decision can be found here. A later ruling by the Commonwealth Court in the same Ryco case re-affirmed that the Court’s holdings were as a matter of law, and precluded any further defense by the Ryco entities that the Steel Act did not apply to the student housing project. That later decision can be found here.
Christopher I. McCabe, Esq.
