The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s confirmation of an employment arbitration award in favor of an employee on FLSA and Arizona state law claims, holding that federal courts have extremely limited authority to vacate arbitration awards and that a claimed factual error by the arbitrator does not warrant vacatur unless it was so critical, obvious, and intentional as to amount to a manifest disregard of the law — a standard the employer failed to meet here.VIP Mortgage Incorporated v. Gates, No. 24-7624 (9th Cir. Dec. 22, 2025).

COMMENT: Why bother to publish this opinion? After all, we all know an arbitrator’s award can’t be vacated for a factual error. And here the factual error would have been dispositive of an attorney’s fees issue because the parties stipulated earlier that counterclaims would be dismissed, with parties bearing own fees and costs regarding litigating the counterclaims. But the arbitrator forgot the stipulation, and did not disallow for fees on the counterclaims in an award. By publishing, the court clarified that to invoke the “legally dispositive facts” exception allowing for a vacatur, mere forgetfulness or inadvertence by an arbitrator, even as to a documented stipulation, is not enough.