Key Points

  • The Utah Court of Appeals held that the term "grounds" in the Utah Procurement Code's protest provisions means the legal basis for relief, which ordinarily requires a citation to the statute or rule the protest relies on.
  • Raptor Technologies' protest, filed by its CEO, apologized for a premature Business Wire press release and asked for a second chance but stated no legal ground, so the protest officer properly dismissed it without a hearing.
  • The court distinguished its earlier 2026 decision in WellSky Corp. v. Procurement Policy Board, in which the protestor had cited three statutory grounds and was entitled to a hearing.
  • Because the Procurement Policy Board may consider only grounds specified in the original protest, the board's alternative merits discussion did not open Raptor's new arguments for review, and the court did not reach them.
  • The State Board of Education's rescission of Raptor's panic-alert award, issued after the press release used the board's name without written approval, remains in place.

The Utah Court of Appeals on Oct. 16 left in place the Utah State Board of Education's cancellation of Raptor Technologies LLC's award to supply wearable panic alert devices to public schools. The board canceled the award after Raptor announced it in a press release before any contract was signed.

Judge Ryan D. Tenney, joined by Judges Gregory K. Orme and Ryan M. Harris, held that Raptor's protest failed because it stated no legal basis for relief. The court declined to disturb a ruling of the state's Procurement Policy Board, which had upheld a protest officer's dismissal of the protest without a hearing.

The decision defines the "grounds" a protest must state under the Utah Procurement Code. The term "refers to the legal basis upon which the protestor is seeking relief," the court held. When a protest claims a violation of law, the court said it would in most cases expect "at a minimum, a citation to the statute or regulation that the protest is relying on." Because the Procurement Policy Board "can only consider what was included in the protest," the court wrote, a vendor cannot add a legal theory on appeal that its protest left out.

A 2024 state law requires local education agencies to "provide a staff person in each classroom with a wearable panic alert device." In December 2025, after a solicitation that drew 27 responses, the Board of Education announced its "intent to award a contract" to Raptor, a school safety technology company, and three other vendors. The notice said that "receipt of" the award did "not create or constitute a contract."

The solicitation's standard terms, which the board said any resulting contract would include, provided that a contractor "shall not use" the board's "name, logo, or endorsement (implied or actual) in any advertising, marketing, or publicity materials without prior written approval."

Raptor asked the board several times about the contract timeline, and the board replied that "services cannot begin until the contract is fully executed." On Jan. 21, 2026, the board wrote, "We are SO close! You should be hearing from [us] by Monday!"

On Feb. 3, without further word from the board, Raptor issued a Business Wire release headlined "Utah Selects Raptor Technologies for Statewide Wearable Panic Alert Solution for K–12 Schools." The board rescinded the award six days later. The release, the board said, had "provide[d] misleading information that ha[d] caused confusion with potential End Users of the cooperative contract and impacted the fairness of the procurement process."

A week after the rescission, Raptor's chief executive, rather than a lawyer, filed the protest. In it, Raptor "fully acknowledge[d] the reasons for the decisions taken in the Rescission" and apologized "for issuing" the release "without written approval and for making any statements that may have been misleading." The protest officer dismissed it for failing "to state valid grounds for a protest."

Raptor, now represented by counsel, appealed to the Procurement Policy Board. It argued, among other things, that the Board of Education lacked a reasonable basis for the cancellation and that the protest officer should have held a hearing. The Procurement Policy Board said several of the arguments were new but addressed them on the merits as well. It concluded that by issuing the release "in direct contravention of those known terms," Raptor had given the Board of Education "a rational and substantial basis" to cancel the award.

In the Court of Appeals, Raptor argued that "a factual basis, as opposed to fully formed legal arguments, is all the statute required Raptor to provide." The court disagreed. Tenney wrote that the statute separately requires "facts and evidence" and "grounds." Under the surplusage canon, the principle that every word of a statute should be given effect, reading grounds to mean facts would make the separate references to grounds "essentially become nullities," he wrote.

Raptor's reading would also require a protest officer "to independently scour the entirety of the Procurement Code and the Administrative Code in search of a statute or rule that might have been violated," Tenney wrote. That task, the court said, "would put the protest officer in the role of advocate."

The court concluded that Raptor's protest was a plea for leniency. "Raptor sought to excuse its conduct, apologize for it, and ask for mercy and a chance to be better in the future," Tenney wrote. The protest cited none of the statutes or standards that Raptor later invoked.

The court also rejected Raptor's claim to a hearing. The Procurement Code allows a protest officer to dismiss a protest without one when it "alleges facts that, if true, do not provide an adequate basis for the protest." The court distinguished its decision earlier this year in WellSky Corp. v. Procurement Policy Board, which ordered a hearing for a protestor that had cited three statutory grounds. Raptor's protest, by contrast, "essentially functioned as an apology letter and a request for a second chance," the court wrote in a footnote.

The court treated the Procurement Policy Board's merits discussion as "something akin to providing an alternate basis for affirmance" and affirmed on the missing legal ground alone. It said it had "no need to separately address the substantive arguments that Raptor made for the first time in its appeal to the Procurement Board."

Raptor was represented by Mark O. Morris. Derek E. Brown represented the Procurement Policy Board and the Board of Education.

The ruling, in No. 20260429-CA, resolves Raptor's original proceeding in the Court of Appeals and leaves the rescission of its award in place. The court did not decide whether the cancellation itself was justified.