California Code of Civil Procedure Sections 1281.97 and 1281.98 Will Be Strictly Enforced.
California Code of Civil Procedure, sections 1281.97 and 1281.98 provide that if a company or business that drafts an arbitration agreement does not pay arbitration fees within 30 days of when fees are due, the company or business is in material breach of the agreement. Ann Williams v. West Coast Hospitals, Inc. (6th Dist. 12/22/22) (Lie, Greenwood, Grover) continues to strictly apply the payment requirement. We have previously posted about the application of those code sections on 12/11/22 and 10/3/22.
COMMENT: The court declined to decide whether the issue of the application of sections 1281.97 and .98 had been effectively delegated to the arbitrator to decide, holding instead that the issue had not been preserved for appeal. In order to reach that conclusion, the court also had to conclude that the code provisions were not jurisdictional, because jurisdictional issues can be reached at any time.
Comments