2003-02-08 That's not what I meant. I was trying to say that a company who bids on a proposal, sues the company that issued the proposal because they did not win the bid, because they used FFU when the company issuing the proposal stated SI had to be used.
As part of some proposals, bidders must submit documents and drawings detailing how their company plans to meet the requirements of the proposal. If the proposal specifies that SI units must be used, and a bidder submits drawings and documents in FFU, the reviewer of the bid may disqualify the bidder based on not submitting documents and/or drawings in SI as specified. The bidder may feel that the requirement was unfair and the use of FFU is perfectly valid and was not given a fair chance. The losing bidder may decide to sue the company issuing the proposal, claiming the restriction against FFU is illegal. I'm not sure if it such a suit is valid, but frivolous suits are filed all of the time. The law (1886?) allowing the use of metric in the US prevents a person or company from being denied fair treatment in contracts and dealings if he choose to use the metric system. The same situation could occur in reverse. A business that functions fine in FFU may feel that contracts or proposals requiring the use of SI interferes with that companies right to profit, especially if the companies methods are proven and their use of FFU would not affect the outcome of the project negatively. In addition to your comment below, it would be a US company suing a foreign company who insists that the US company use SI, when the US company wants to use FFU. John > I cannot imagine a company in another NAFTA country suing a US company for > using SI. > > Bill Potts, CMS > Roseville, CA > http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
