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Arbitration Law FAQs: Confirming Arbitration Awards under the Federal Arbitration Act

September 18th, 2018 Arbitration and Mediation FAQs, Arbitration as a Matter of Consent, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Awards, Federal Arbitration Act Enforcement Litigation Procedure, Final Awards, Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, Nuts & Bolts, Nuts & Bolts: Arbitration, Small Business B-2-B Arbitration Comments Off on Arbitration Law FAQs: Confirming Arbitration Awards under the Federal Arbitration Act

Introduction

Confirming Arbitration Awards 1

Confirming Arbitration Awards 1

Favorable arbitration awards are wonderful things, but they are not self-enforcing. Sometimes the other side voluntarily complies, but if not, there is really not much of anything the arbitrator can do to help.

Arbitrators are not judges and do not have the authority to garnish wages, seize property,  foreclose on encumbered property, freeze bank accounts, impose contempt sanctions, and so forth. Parties can delegate to arbitrators broad adjudicatory and remedial authority, but that is relevant only to the nature and scope of their awards, and does not confer power on the arbitrators to enforce their awards coercively.

Apart from its potential preclusive effect in subsequent litigation or arbitration, an arbitration award stands on the same footing as any other privately prepared legal document, and for all intents and purposes it is a contract made for the parties by their joint agent of sorts—the arbitrator or arbitration panel. It may be intended by the arbitrator or panel, and at least one of the parties, to have legal effect, but it is up to a court to say what legal effect it has, and, if necessary, to implement that legal effect through coercive enforcement.

A judgment, by contrast, is an official decree by a governmental body (the court) that not only can be coercively enforced through subsequent summary proceedings in the same or other courts (including courts in other states and federal judicial districts), but is, to some extent, self-enforcing. A judgment, for example, can ordinarily be filed as a statutory lien on real property, and applicable state or federal law may, for example, authorize attorneys to avail their clients of certain judgment-enforcement-related remedies without prior judicial authorization.

Confirming Arbitration Awards 2

Confirming Arbitration Awards 2

The Federal Arbitration Act, and most or all state arbitration statutes, provide for enforcement of arbitration awards through a procedure by which a party may request a court to enter judgment on the award, that is to “confirm” it. Once an award has been reduced to judgment, it can be enforced to the same extent as any other judgment. See, e.g., 9 U.S.C. § 13 (Under Federal Arbitration Act, judgment on award “shall have the same force and effect, in all respects, as, and be subject to all the provisions of law relating to, a judgment in an action; and it may be enforced as if it had been rendered in an action in the court in which it is entered”); Fla. Stat. § 682.15(1)( “The judgment may be recorded, docketed, and enforced as any other judgment in a civil action.”); N.Y. Civ. Prac. L. & R. § 7514(a) (“A judgment shall be entered upon the confirmation of an award.”).

Chapter One of The Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”), and most or all state arbitration statutes, authorize courts to confirm domestic awards in summary proceedings. State arbitration-law rules, procedures, limitation periods, and the like vary from state to state and frequently from the FAA, and state courts may apply them to FAA-governed awards (provided doing so does not frustrate the purposes and objectives of the FAA). And Chapter 2 of the FAA provides some different rules that apply to the confirmation of domestic arbitration awards that fall under the Convention on the Recognition of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “Convention”), and the enforcement of non-domestic arbitration awards falling under the Convention (i.e., awards made in territory of a country that is a signatory to the Convention.

But let’s keep things simple, and take a brief look at the FAA’s requirements for confirming arbitration awards, as applicable in federal court for domestic awards not falling under Chapter Two of the Federal Arbitration Act in situations where there is no prior pending action related to the arbitration, and  there are no issues concerning federal subject-matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, sufficiency or service of process, venue (i.e., whether the suit should have been brought in a different federal judicial district), or the applicability of Chapter One of the FAA (9 U.S.C. §§ 1-16).  We’ll also discuss how applications to confirm are supposed to be summary proceedings, why timing of an application is important, and how courts decide them.

What are the Requirements for Confirming Arbitration Awards under the Federal Arbitration Act?

Confirming Arbitration Awards 3

Confirming Arbitration Awards 3

Like most other issues arising under the FAA, whether a court should confirm an award depends on what the parties agreed. Section 9 of the FAA, which governs confirmation of awards, says—with bracketed lettering added, and in pertinent part: “[A] If the parties in their agreement have [B] agreed that a judgment of the court shall be entered upon [C] the award made pursuant to the arbitration, and [D] shall specify the court, then [E] at any time within one year after the award is made any party to the arbitration may apply to the court so specified for an order confirming the award, and [F] thereupon the court must grant such an order unless [G] the award is vacated, modified, or corrected as prescribed in sections 10 and 11 of this title.” 9 U.S.C. § 9. Items [A] through [D] above each concern party consent as evidenced by the parties’ arbitration agreement.

The key substantive requirements for confirming arbitration awards are thus: Continue Reading »

Can a Party Obtain Post-Judgment Relief from a Confirmed Arbitration Award Procured by Fraud?

May 26th, 2015 Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Arbitration Risks, Asbestos-Related Claims, Bad Faith, Confirmation of Awards, Corruption or Undue Means, Definition of Occurrence, Federal Courts, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Final Awards, Grounds for Vacatur, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Comments Off on Can a Party Obtain Post-Judgment Relief from a Confirmed Arbitration Award Procured by Fraud?

Introduction

Relief from an Arbitration Award Procured by Fraud

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Section 10(a)(1) of the Federal Arbitration Act authorizes Courts to vacate arbitration awards that were “procured by fraud, corruption or undue means.”  9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(1). (For a discussion of Section 10(a)(1), see L. Reins. & Arb. Law Forum post here.) But a motion to vacate an arbitration award procured by fraud (or otherwise) is subject to a strict three-month deadline, and Section 10, unlike certain of its state-law counterparts, does not provide for tolling of the three-month deadline on the ground the challenging party did not know or have reason to know it had grounds to allege the arbitration award was procured by fraud. Compare 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(1) with 2000 Revised Uniform Arbitration Act § 23(b) (Uniform Law Comm’n 2000) (If “the [movant] alleges that the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or other undue means, [then, in that].  .  .   case the [motion] must be made within 90 days after the ground is known or by the exercise of reasonable care would have been known by the [movant].”);  1955 Uniform Arbitration Act § 12(b) (Uniform Law Comm’n 1955) ( “[I]f predicated upon corruption, fraud or other undue means, [the motion to vacate] shall be made within ninety days after such grounds are known or should have been known.”).

Once an award has been confirmed, it has the same force and effect as any other judgment of the court. See 9 U.S.C. § 13. Federal Rule Civ. P. 60(b) provides that “[o]n motion and just terms, the court may relieve a party or its legal representative from a final judgment, order, or
proceeding for the following reasons:.  .  .  (3) fraud (whether previously called intrinsic or extrinsic), misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party.  .  .  .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(c) provides that “[a] motion under Rule 60(b) must be made within a reasonable time—and for reasons (1), (2), and (3) [i.e., fraud, misrepresentation or misconduct] no more than a year after the entry of the judgment or order or the date of the proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(c).

So can a challenging party obtain relief from a confirmation judgment if: (a) an award-challenging party contends the Court entered judgment oin an arbitration award procured by fraud; (b) by extension, the judgment confirming the award was itself procured by fraud; (c) the award-challenging party did not know or have reason to know it was at the wrong end of an arbitration award procured by fraud until after the three-month statute of limitations for vacating an award had elapsed; and (d) the award-challenging party makes a timely motion for post-judgment relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)? According to a district court judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the answer is “no.”

 

Arrowood Indem. Co. v. Equitas Insurance Ltd., No. 13-cv-7680 (DLC), slip op. (S.D.N.Y. May 14, 2015)

No Post-Judgment Relief from Arbitration Award Procured by Fraud (Alleged or Otherwise)

Background

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Arrowood arose out of an excess-of-loss treaty Arrowood’s predecessor(s) in interest had entered into with Underwriters at Lloyd’s in the 1960s. The terms of the treaty were apparently part of, or incorporated into, a “Global Slip,” which the Court, without much elaboration, described as “a complex contractual  reinsurance program.” The Global Slip was first negotiated in 1966 and effective January 1, 1967 through December 31, 1968. It was apparently renewed a number of times thereafter, though the court does not say for what period or periods. The renewal agreements were “substantially similar” although they “contain[ed] new contractual language.” Slip op. at 2.

The Global Slip covered (apparently among other things) losses in excess of $1 million incurred under Arrowood’s casualty insurance policies under three different types of coverage. At issue was “Common Cause Coverage,” which covered losses arising out of an “occurrences” during the contract term, provided the occurrence or occurrences were the “probable common cause or causes” of more than one claim under the policies. The Global Slip also contained a “First Advised” clause, which said that “this Contract does not cover any claim or claims arising from a common cause, which are not first advised during the period of this Contract.”

yay-1299629-digitalLike so many other liability insurers, Arrowood began receiving, adjusting and settling asbestos bodily injury claims beginning in the 1980s. Underwriters at Lloyd’s London insisted that Arrowood present its asbestos reinsurance claims on a per claimant per exposure-year basis, absorbing one $1 million retention each year against the total asbestos claim liabilities allocated to that year under the Underwriters’ per claimant per exposure-year allocation methodology.

In 2008 Arrowood, after reviewing the contract language, stopped using exclusively the Underwriters-prescribed asbestos personal-injury claim reinsurance allocation methodology, which it had followed for almost 25 years, and began presenting a number of claims under the Common Cause Coverage provision of the Global Slip . Because those claims were not, “first advised” in the years 1967 or 1968, the Underwriters denied them.

The Arbitration and Confirmation Proceedings

One of the parties demanded arbitration in October 2010, and a tripartite panel was appointed. The Underwriters argued, among other things, that: (a) the parties’s 25-year course of dealing evidenced a binding agreement on how asbestos claims would be presented to the Underwriters; (b) some claims fell exclusively under employer’s liability coverage; and (c) Common Cause Coverage  did not apply because the requirements of the First Advised Clause were not satisfied. Continue Reading »

Res Judicata and Consolidated Arbitration: the Sixth Circuit puts the Kibosh on the “Contagion Theory of Arbitration”

September 17th, 2014 Appellate Practice, Arbitrability, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration as a Matter of Consent, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Confirmation of Awards, Consolidation of Arbitration Proceedings, Construction Industry Arbitration, Contract Interpretation, Drafting Arbitration Agreements, Existence of Arbitration Agreement, Final Awards, Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, Michigan State Courts, Practice and Procedure, Preclusive Effect of Awards, Res Judicata or Claim Preclusion, State Courts, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, United States Supreme Court Comments Off on Res Judicata and Consolidated Arbitration: the Sixth Circuit puts the Kibosh on the “Contagion Theory of Arbitration”

Res judicata—Latin for a “matter” or “thing” “decided”—is the legal principle under which a final judgment in one action bars the same parties from relitigating in another, successive action matters that were or could have been asserted in that  first action. Also known as “claim preclusion”, it is designed to promote finality and judicial economy, and to protect persons from vexatious litigation. See, generally, Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 891 (2008).

But can an unconfirmed arbitration  award preclude a party from maintaining a court action to resolve a matter that it did not submit or agree to submit to arbitration? Suppose:

  1. A has an arbitration agreement with B (the “AB Agreement”);
  2. B has an arbitration agreement with C (the “BC Agreement”);
  3. A and C did not agree to arbitrate any disputes between them;
  4. The AB Agreement contemplates the parties arbitrating their claims against each other in a consolidated arbitration that may involve factually-related disputes that B has agreed to arbitrate with C or other third parties, provided those third parties consent to consolidated arbitration;
  5. The AB Agreement does not purport to require A or B to arbitrate any disputes between (a) A or B or both; and (b) C or any other non-party;
  6. The BC Agreement does not purport to require B or C to arbitrate any disputes between (a) B or C or both; and (b) A or any other third party;
  7. A dispute arises between A and B, and A demands arbitration against B;
  8. B, in turn, demands arbitration against C, seeking indemnity from C for any liability B may have to A;
  9. The AB and BC arbitrations are consolidated over A’s objection;
  10. A knows it has a legal and factual basis for asserting a tort claim against C arising out of the same transactions and occurrences at issue in the consolidated arbitration, but does not submit (or attempt to submit) that claim to arbitration;
  11. The arbitration proceeds, and the arbitrator issues a final award finding that B is liable to A for $X in damages and that C is not obligated to indemnify B;
  12. Nobody seeks to confirm, vacate, modify or correct the award; and
  13. A subsequently brings an action in court against C, which seeks damages from C allegedly caused by C’s negligent conduct with respect to the same transactions and occurrences that were the subject of the consolidated arbitration.

Is A’s lawsuit barred by res judicata?

On August 28, 2014, in O’Neil v. Shepley, No. 13-2320, slip op. (6th Cir. Aug. 28, 2014),  the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, said the answer was “no,” and that the answer would have been the same had the AB/BC award been confirmed. See slip op. at 10-11.

The two-judge majority opinion—authored by Chief Circuit Court Judge R. Guy Cole, and joined by Circuit (and former Chief) Judge Danny Julian Boggs—minced no words when it said that to bar A’s lawsuit based on res judicata would be to endorse a “contagion theory of arbitration” that “has no basis in law or the relevant contracts[:]”

Simply put: the premise of arbitration is consent and [A] did not consent to arbitrate the present claims [against C]. Our judicial doctrines do not force it to do so now.

Slip op. at 10-11.

Circuit Court Judge David William McKeague dissented, arguing that the “court does not need to infect [A] with a ‘contagion theory of arbitration’ to bar his claims with res judicata. It merely needs to hold him to the basic terms of his contract. Any infection that [A] O’Neil has acquired is its own doing.” That was so, claimed the dissent, because:

[The AB arbitration was] eventually expanded to include [C]. Moreover, in [subcontractor A’s] contract with [construction manager B], [A] agreed to arbitrate his grievances with [B] and further agreed in a standard ‘flowthrough’ provision to be ‘bound by the procedures, decision and determinations resulting from any dispute resolution process’ in the contract between [B] and [the owner].  The contract between [B] and the [owner] required all disputes, among all contractors, to be submitted to binding arbitration.

Slip op. at 13 (emphasis in original) (McKeague, J., dissenting).

All three judges appeared to agree that res judicata does not turn on whether the first proceeding would have barred the second had the first been a plenary court proceeding. The difference of opinion between the majority and dissent was that the dissent was prepared to find A’s agreement to consolidated arbitration was the functional equivalent of an agreement arbitrate its claims against any person who might consent to join such a consolidated arbitration, even if A had no contractual relationship with that person, let alone a written agreement to arbitrate.

We think the majority’s read of the relevant contractual provisions gave effect to the parties expressed intent, whereas the dissent’s view of what the parties agreed did not. But to appreciate why, you’ll need to take a closer look at the Sheply facts, which in substance are much like (but not identical to) those in our hypothetical. Continue Reading »

Arbitration and Mediation FAQs: I Received an Arbitration Award in my Favor but my Adversary Refuses to Pay it. What can I do?

June 14th, 2014 Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration and Mediation FAQs, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Confirmation of Awards, Final Awards, Nuts & Bolts, Nuts & Bolts: Arbitration, Practice and Procedure, Small Business B-2-B Arbitration, State Arbitration Statutes, State Courts, Statute of Limitations Comments Off on Arbitration and Mediation FAQs: I Received an Arbitration Award in my Favor but my Adversary Refuses to Pay it. What can I do?

Favorable arbitration awards are wonderful things, but they are not self-enforcing. Sometimes the other side voluntarily complies, but if not, there is really not much of anything the arbitrator can do to help.

Arbitrators are not judges and thus do not have the authority to garnish wages, seize property,  foreclose on encumbered property, freeze bank accounts, impose contempt sanctions and so forth. Parties can delegate to arbitrators broad adjudicatory and remedial authority, but that is relevant only to the nature and scope of their awards, and does not confer power on the arbitrators to enforce their awards coercively.

Apart from its potential preclusive effect in subsequent litigation, an arbitration award stands on the same footing as any other privately prepared legal document, such as a contract. It may be intended by the arbitrators and at least one of the parties to have legal effect, but it is up to a court to say what legal effect it has, and,  if necessary, to implement that legal effect through coercive enforcement. A judgment, by contrast, is an official decree that not only can be coercively enforced through subsequent summary proceedings in the same or other courts (including courts in other states and federal judicial districts), but is, to some extent, self-enforcing. A judgment, for example, can ordinarily be filed as a lien on real property, and applicable state or federal law may, for example, authorize attorneys to avail their clients of certain judgment-enforcement-related remedies without prior judicial authorization.

But that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck; it means you need a court to enter judgment on the award, that is, to “confirm” it. Once an award has been reduced to judgment, it can be enforced to the same extent as any other judgment. See, e.g., 9 U.S.C. § 13 (Under Federal Arbitration Act, judgment on award “shall have the same force and effect, in all respects, as, and be subject to all the provisions of law relating to, a judgment in an action; and it may be enforced as if it had been rendered in an action in the court in which it is entered”); Fla. Stat. § 682.15(1)( “The judgment may be recorded, docketed, and enforced as any other judgment in a civil action.”); N.Y. Civ. Prac. L. & R. § 7514(a) (“A judgment shall be entered upon the confirmation of an award.”).

The Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”), and most or all state arbitration statutes, authorize courts to confirm awards in summary proceedings. State arbitration-law rules, procedures, limitation periods and the like vary from state to state and frequently from the FAA, and state courts may apply them to FAA-governed awards (provided doing so does not frustrate the purposes and objectives of the FAA).

But let’s keep things simple, and take a brief look at the FAA’s requirements for confirmation applicable in federal court when there is no prior pending action related to the arbitration, and  there are no issues concerning federal subject matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, sufficiency or service of process, venue (i.e., whether suit should have been brought in another federal judicial district) or the applicability of the FAA.  We’ll also discuss how applications to confirm are supposed to be summary proceedings, why timing of an application is important, and how courts go about deciding them. Continue Reading »

No Good Deed Should Go Unpunished: Functus Officio and Merion Constr. Mgt., LLC v. Kemron Environmental Serv., Inc.—Part I

May 3rd, 2014 American Arbitration Association, Appellate Practice, Arbitrability, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration and Mediation FAQs, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Arbitration Provider Rules, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Construction Industry Arbitration, Final Awards, Functus Officio, Grounds for Vacatur, Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, New Jersey State Courts, Practice and Procedure, State Arbitration Statutes, State Courts, Uncategorized Comments Off on No Good Deed Should Go Unpunished: Functus Officio and Merion Constr. Mgt., LLC v. Kemron Environmental Serv., Inc.—Part I

Courts usually err in favor of not vacating awards in close cases. As a result, Courts usually vacate awards only where there is a very clear, fundamental disconnect between the award and the parties’ arbitration agreement. Vacating an award in those circumstances enforces the parties’ agreement to arbitrate, which is exactly what the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) and state arbitration codes are supposed to do. (See, e.g., L. Reins. & Arb. L. Forum post here.)

Today’s case, Merion Constr. Mgt., LLC v. Kemron Environmental Serv., Inc., No. A-2428-12T4, slip op. (N.J. App. Div. March 13, 2014), involved two disputed awards: the original arbitration award (the “Original Award”) and a subsequent, modified award (the “Modified Award”). The arbitrator (the “Arbitrator”) issued the Modified Award to correct a mistake in the Original Award, which had inadvertently omitted items of claimed damage that one of the parties had requested the Arbitrator to award. The Arbitrator said he intended to include those damage items in the Original Award. The Modified Award thus accurately reflected the parties’ agreement and submission and the Original Award did not.

Which Award should have been confirmed? Relying on the functus officio doctrine, and an American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) Rule concerning arbitral modification and correction of awards, the intermediate state appellate court reversed a trial court judgment confirming the Modified Award, and held that the Original Award should have been confirmed.

A few years back the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court prefaced one his opinions with the following truism: “People make mistakes. Even administrators of ERISA plans.” Conkright v. Frommert, 559 U.S. 506, 509 (2010) (Roberts, C.J.). Had Merion Construction been decided correctly, then the New Jersey appellate court might have prefaced its opinion with a similar truism: “People make mistakes. Even arbitrators.” But based on how the case was decided a more fitting preface would have been: “No good deed should go unpunished. Even those perpetrated by arbitrators.” Continue Reading »

More on Final Awards: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois v. Organon Teknika Corp. LLC

August 20th, 2010 Appellate Practice, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Final Awards, Functus Officio, Practice and Procedure, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Comments Off on More on Final Awards: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois v. Organon Teknika Corp. LLC

A.   Introduction

Regular readers have heard us preach about the importance of knowing arbitration law cold (here), understanding and identifying when an arbitration award is final (here), and being keenly aware of Federal Arbitration Act deadlines (here).  The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently decided a case that illustrates these points well.  See Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois v. Organon Teknika Corp. LLC, ___ F.3d ___, slip op. (7th Cir. July 27, 2010) (Easterbrook, C.J.). 

The Court held that, in the circumstances, an arbitration award was final notwithstanding a provision in the award that said the arbitrator reserves his right to change his mind.  But there is more to it than that.  Continue Reading »