Arbitration, Standard Of Review: Trial Court’s Order Denying Motion To Compel Arbitration Is Affirmed Where Trial Court Had To Rule On “Intensely Factual And Hotly Contested Issues”

November 19, 2017 · Uncategorized

"This Appeal Comes Down To Application Of The Standard Of Review."

        While I have blogged many times about cases in which the Court of Appeal has reversed an order denying a motion  to compel arbitration, this is not one of those cases.  T3 Motion, Inc. v Tsumpes, G053654 (4/3  11/14/17) (Fybel, Bedsworth, Thompson) (unpublished).  When the Court of Appeal tells us early on that the disputes before the trial court were "intensely factual and hotly contested" we have a good idea of where it is pointing to:  affirmance, based on the substantial evidence standard of review.

        Here, a company and its CEO disagreed about whether the CEO entered into a written Employment Agreement containing an arbitration clause that the CEO could invoke.  The trial court found that, while the Board of Directors may have discussed the concept of the Employment Agreement in September 2013, there was a lack of mutual assent, and there was forensic evidence that the Employment Agreement containing the arbitration provision and signed by Tsumpes had been created in 2015.

        Affirmed.

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