How About Two Years – Is Two Years Good For You? Brothers appealed from a superior court order denying their petition to vacate several awards of an arbitrator with whom they were dissatisfied. They contended the arbitrator failed to disclose his professional relationship with opposing party’s counsel. In 2011, one of the appellants discovered […]
Maricopa County Waived Argument That Evidence Admitted To Show Settlement Should Be Privileged Under Federal Law 87 Yard Punt . . . In Wilcox v. Arpaio, No. 12-16418 (9th Cir. Feb. 2, 2014) (Tashima, Farris, Reinhardt), the Ninth Circuit avoids having to “determine whether a mediation privilege should be recognized under federal common […]
Quotation of the day I know, I know, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of my blawg. And yet I couldn’t resist passing on this tidbit to you from one of yesterday’s unpublished cases decided by our local Court of Appeal: “There is one matter that requires minor modification of […]
Recommended Reading: Post-Arbitral Award Investigation Of Bias. Paul J. Dubow, an arbitrator and mediator in San Francisco, asks whether post-award investigation can vacate arbitration awards in “ADR Update”, California Litigation (Vol. 27, No. 1 2014), p. 37. It is easy for an unhappy client’s attorney to do a Google search about an arbitrator […]
Review Of Legal Error Here Was Job For Court Of Appeal Though an error in law or fact is not a basis for overturning an arbitrator’s award, in California, the parties by agreement can make the arbitrator’s award reviewable for legal error. Here, the parties agreed that the award was to be reviewed […]
Also, California Code of Civil Procedure, Section 1281.2, Did Not Prevent Arbitration, Because Federal Arbitration Act Applied And Preempted State Provision Defendants/appellants in the next case lost a petition to compel arbitration in the trial court. At first blush, they had waived their right to arbitrate, because they delayed bringing their motion to […]
Split Of Opinion In District Two Over Enforceability Of Delegation Clauses Poker game of construction workers at canteen, Shasta Dam. Russell Lee, photographer. 1939. Library of Congress. When Lourdes Tiri, a cook fired by Lucky Chances, a card-club casino and restaurant, sued her employer, the employer petitioned to compel arbitration. However, the trial court […]
AAA Clause Does Not Contain Required Prevailing Party Language Necessary For Fee Recover Under Civ. Code section 1717 In Fujian Peak Group, Inc. v. Huang, No. D063296 (4th Dist. Div. 1 May 15, 2014) (Huffman, McConnell, O’Rourke) (unpublished), defendant Huang was deleted from an arbitration award because he had neither been served nor had […]
Failure To Observe 30-Day Deadline To File Rejection Or Request Trial Tubes Appeal Rothman v. Deshay, Case No. B245075 (2nd Dist. Div. 4 May 13, 2014) (Epstein, Manella, Edmon) (unpublished) is a Court of Appeal case that has its genesis in mandatory fee arbitration between attorney Rothman and client Deshay. Though unpublished, the case […]
An Exercise In Drawing Bright Lines Home seller Reagan Silber sought indemnification from subcontractors after rather decisively losing an arbitration with a home buyer, who discovered extensive and undisclosed water intrusion in the Bel Air home. “The groundskeeper recalled that, on one occasion, Silber had joked to him that the house was worth […]