A general contractor’s lowest bidder sues for breach after the contractor hires a second installer at a lower bid. Will the subcontractor prevail?

• A. Yes, because his bid was the lowest and was accepted.
• B. Yes, because the general contractor promised to hire him.
• C. No, because his bid was never accepted.
• D. No, because the contract was with the other installer.

Answer: (C)

The key idea is how contracts are formed: there must be an offer and an acceptance. A bid submitted by a subcontractor is not automatically a binding contract; it becomes enforceable only if the general contractor accepts it. In this scenario, the general contractor chose to hire another installer at a lower bid, which means the lowest bidder’s offer was never accepted. Without acceptance, there is no contract between the general contractor and the subcontractor, so there’s nothing to breach. The contract, if any, is with the installer who was actually hired.

That’s why the subcontractor cannot prevail: the bid was never accepted, so no contract existed to breach. The fact that the contractor hired a different installer at a lower price shows the contract was formed with that other installer, not with the first bidder.