California Mediation and Arbitration

Arbitration, FAA: Ninth Circuit Holds Federal Arbitration Act Does Not Preempt California's McGill Rule

McGill v. Citibank Held Agreement To Waive Right To Seek Public Injunctive Relief Is Unenforceable.

        In McGill v. Citibank, N.A. (2017), the California Supreme Court held that a contract purporting to waive a party's right to seek public injunctive relief in any forum is unenforceable under California law. The key issue in Blair v. Rent-A-Car, No. 17-17221 (9th Cir.  6/28/19) (Fletcher, McKeown, Murguia), is whether the Federal Arbitration Act preempts California's McGill  rule. The Ninth Circuit holds that the FAA does not preempt the McGill rule.

        Blair brought a putative class action against the Rent-A-Center defendants, alleging they overcharged for rent-to-own plans for household items. Such plans provide for installment payments, and if all payments are timely made, the consumer owns the item. Blair's agreement contained an arbitration clause providing that it was "intended to be interpreted as broadly as the FAA allows." The agreement also provided that arbitration was to be on an individual basis and relief could not affect other account holders. There could be no class, collective, mass, private attorney general, or representative action. If the provision was held to be unenforceable, then the claims for relief had to be severed and brought in a judicial forum.

        The district court concluded that this agreement violated the McGill rule because it waived Blair's right to seek public injunctive relief in any forum (1) because all claims had to be heard in arbitration; and (2) because claims for public injunctive relief could not exist in arbitration consistent with the parties' agreement. The Court of Appeals agreed, and severed the claims providing for public injunctive relief, which will now be heard in court.

        The court analyzes federal preemption in two steps. First, it explains the McGill rule is a "generally applicable contract defense." In other words, it applies equally to arbitration and non-arbitration agreements. In contrast, a rule that uniquely burdens arbitration would be preempted by the FAA. Second, even a generally applicable contract defense may not prevent preemption, if the rule interferes with the accomplishment of the FAA's objectives. However, the McGill rule does not deprive the parties of the benefits of arbitration, because according to the Blair court, a public injunctive relief claim could be sought in arbitration or in court. And seeking a public injunction in arbitration does not require all the procedural formality that a class action would require.

        Here, however, the parties' agreement precluded the pursuit of a public injunction in arbitration, and triggered severance of public injunctive relief claims -- so such claims will go to the district court.

        COMMENT: In Blair, the claims for public injunctive relief are severed and go to court only because the agreement does not allow such claims to be heard in arbitration. But an agreement could be drafted that would allow for a hearing of such claims in arbitration. How much protection would that give to the public?

         It would seem that the interests of the public would be better served by hearing public injunctive relief claims in court, because mistakes of law and fact made by an arbitrator would be no basis for vacating the award. While that is exactly what private parties should expect, in the case of public injunctive relief, broader interests are at stake. If one could write on a blank slate, the public's interests would be better protected by a court hearing than by arbitration. But one does not write here on a blank slate.

 

    

 

Arbitration, Class Actions, Waiver, Construction of Agreement: SCOTUS Rules That Class Arbitration Is Not Allowed When Agreement Is Ambiguous

Majority Rejects State Law Rule That Ambiguous Contracts Are Interpreted Against The Drafter Because . . . 

    Frank Varela, an employee of Petitioner Lamps Plus, Inc., sued Lamps Plus because a hacker tricked Varela's employer into disclosing tax information about 1,300 employees. Mr. Varela was understandably miffed after a fraudulent income tax return was filed in his name. Lamps Plus sought to compel arbitration on an individual basis, relying on an arbitration provision. The District Court rejected the request for individual arbitration, but authorized class arbitration, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. So Lamps Plus petitioned to the Supreme Court. Lamps Plus, Inc., et al. v. Varela, No. 17-988 (S.Ct.  4/24/19).

    It is established law that classwide arbitration may not be compelled when an agreement is silent about its availability. Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp., 559 U.S. 662 (2010). However, the Ninth Circuit believed that Stolt-Nielsen was not controlling, because in that case, the parties stipulated the agreement was silent, but here, the agreement was ambiguous. Therefore, the rule of interpreting an agreement against the drafter (contra proferentem) allowed the court to interpret the ambiguity against the draftsman/employer, and in favor of the employee.

    AT&T v. Concepcion, 559 U.S. 333 (2011) allowed for the application of defenses to arbitration when the defenses were neutral and did not uniquely burden arbitration. And it would seem that the contra preferentem rule of contractual interpretation, applied here by the employee to defend against individual arbitration, and to use in favor of class arbitration, would qualify as a neutral rule, since the rule applies to arbitration clauses as well as to other contractual clauses. 

    However, the SCOTUS majority, which is very much in favor of arbitration and specifically, individual arbitration, concluded that under the Federal Arbitration Act, an ambiguous agreement cannot provide a basis for class arbitration.

    Here's the scorecard with a brief summary of the opinions:

    1. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Court's opinion, in which Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined. The majority held that it had jurisdiction to hear the appeal, because even though the District Court compelled arbitration, the fact that it allowed for class arbitration instead of individual arbitration, meant a "fundamental" change, and resulted in a denial of the relief Lamps Plus was requesting. The FAA, rather than the state rule of contract interpretation, provided the default rule for resolving ambiguities in arbitration agreements, and here the majority concluded that ambiguity meant a lack of consent to class arbitration.

    2. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Thomas remains "skeptical of this Court's implied pre-emption precedents." But he remained comfortable with the majority opinion, because he believed that the contract was silent about class action, and thus Stolt-Nielsen applied, and he believed that California law would also reach the conclusion that the arbitration  provision did not provide a basis for class arbitration.

    3.  Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justices Breyer and Sotomayor joined, dissented, and joined Justice Kagan's dissent in full. The thrust of Ginsburg's dissent is that the FAA was intended "to enable merchants of roughly equal bargaining power to enter into binding agreements to arbitrate commercial disputes" (quoting from her own dissent in Epic Systems Corp.), and current jurisprudence has taken a turn to thwart "effective access to justice" for those who lack power and encounter violations of their rights (to quote another Ginsburg dissent in DIRECTV).

    4. Justice Breyer dissented, believing that there was no jurisdiction, based on Lamps Plus' appeal from an order allowing arbitration. Typically, there is no appeal from an order allowing arbitration, because such an order is interlocutory, rather than final, unlike a district court order refusing to compel arbitration. And because the order granting Lamps Plus' motion to compel was interlocutory, the District Court's dismissal of the case in the very same order was improper, according to Breyer. Lastly, Breyer disagreed with the majority's conclusion that class arbitration is so "fundamental[l]y" different from individual arbitration, that the District Court did not really grant a motion to arbitrate (which would be interlocutory), but rather denied the relief Lamps Plus really wanted. While class arbitration may be different than individual arbitration, Breyer argued that class arbitration was still arbitration, and that an order allowing class arbitration was still interlocutory.

    5. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joining Justice Ginsburg's dissent in full and Part II of Justice Kagan's dissent. She believed "[t]his Court went wrong years ago in concluding that a 'shift from bilateral arbitration to class-action arbitration' imposes such 'fundamental changes,' . . . that class-action arbitration 'is not arbitration as envisioned by the' Federal Arbitration Act. . . " She also disagreed that the FAA could be read "to pre-empt the neutral principle of state contract law on which the court below relied." 

    6. Justice Kagan, dissenting, is joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, and as to Part II, by Justice Sotomayor. Part I of Kagan's dissent explains why she believes the arbitration provision authorizes class arbitration, and Part II explains why, even if the provision is ambiguous, California law provides a clear answer by construing ambiguities against the drafter. Justice Kagan explains that the FAA does not federalize basic contract law, except when state contract law discriminates against arbitration agreements. She happens to interpret the arbitration clause as allowing for class arbitration, and even if it doesn't unambiguously do so, then "a plain-vanilla rule of contract interpretation" applied in California and all other states, requires interpretation against the drafter. In effect, the majority has made a policy decision that class arbitration "undermine[s] the central benefits of arbitration itself" -- a policy decision with which Kagan disagrees, and that in she believes does not justify displacing applicable state law regarding the interpretation of ambiguous contracts.

    COMMENT. Back in December 2016, I wrote an article entitled "The Politics of Arbitration," describing how arbitration had become one more "hot button" issue for the Supreme Court, dividing the Justices along political lines. Notwithstanding the six different opinions described above in Lamps Plus, the fault line is along predictable political lines: Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, all appointed by Republican presidents, formed the majority, while the dissenters, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, were all appointed by Democratic presidents.

    The majority's opinion brought to mind the title of David Lodge's satirical novel, How Far Can You Go? (1980). If the majority's policy decision that class arbitration is (fundamentally) not arbitration means it will not countenance a state rule of contract interpretation leading to a different result, just how far will it go to discard other background principles of contract law in arbitration cases?

 

    

Arbitration, Gateway Issues, Delegation, Severability, FAA: Court Had Authority To Adjudicate Enforceability Of Arbitration Agreement, Where Party Specifically Challenged The Arbitration Agreement

Opinion Explains How Contract And Arbitration Agreement Are Treated As Separate Agreements.

    Jackpot Harvesting, Inc. v. Applied Underwriters, H044953 (6th Dist.  3/28/19) (Danner, Greenwood, Grover), provides a detailed discussion of whether the court or the arbitrator has authority to enforce an arbitration agreement, and how the concept of "severability" helps the analysis.

    Applied Underwriters offered workers' compensation insurance to Jackpot Harvesting, Inc. and related companies through a number of agreements, one of which was entitled "Request to Bind" and which contained an arbitration agreement. Jackpot sued Applied,  believing Applied mishandled claims and failed to disclose how premiums were calculated. Applied moved to compel arbitration, the trial court denied the motion, and Applied appealed. The important threshold question was whether the trial judge had the authority to decide the gateway issue of arbitrability, or whether that issue was one for the arbitrator to resolve.

    The parties agreed that the Federal Arbitration Act supplied the governing law, and the FAA carries with it a strong policy in favor of enforcing arbitration provisions. Of course, the parties could have included a "delegation clause" specifying who had authority to decide gateway issues. But the arbitration provision did not include a delegation clause.

    In such a situation, SCOTUS applies "the severability principle." The challenge to the validity of an arbitration agreement or delegation clause is treated separately from a challenge to the validity of the entire contract.  In effect, the contract between the parties, and the arbitration provision, are analyzed as two separate contracts. "Unless a party specifically challenges the validity of the agreement to arbitrate, both sides may be required to take all their disputes -- including disputes about the validity of their broader contract -- to arbitration." New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 139 S.Ct. 532, 539 (2019). 

    Applied argued that the New Prime approach required an "analytically distinct" attack on the arbitration provision -- in other words, an attack distinct from the attack on the contract as a whole. While conceding that there is "some support" for that position, the Court of Appeal says that it hasn't been shown a SCOTUS case requiring that the "substance of the challenge to the arbitration agreement must differ in all respects from the challenge to the underlying agreement." But this is dictum, because the Court of Appeal then found a distinct challenge to the arbitration provision in the Request to Bind: the Request to Bind was "a collateral agreement" triggering statutory filing and regulatory approval requirements under the Insurance Code and regulations, and "a contract made in violation of a regulatory statute is void."

    So the arbitration provision is specifically challenged. Found to be made in violation of a regulatory statute, the arbitration provision crashes and burns, leaving the trial judge with the authority to adjudicate the enforceability of the arbitration agreement. The denial of the motion to compel arbitration is AFFIRMED.

    

Federal Arbitration Act: Fifth District Holds That Truck Driver Engaged In Interstate Commerce Is Exempt From FAA Arbitration Requirement

Driver Did Not Need To Cross State Lines To Engage In Interstate Commerce.

    The Federal Arbitration Act contains a statutory exemption for "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U.S.C. section 1 (italics added). Thus, a truck driver engaged in interstate commerce is exempted from arbitration under the FAA. 

    The issue in Nieto v. Fresno Beverage Company, Inc., F074704 (5th Dist.  3/22/19) (Detjen, Franson, Desantos) was whether a truck driver who did not cross state lines "engaged in interstate commerce." Here, the facts were that the driver traveled in California, while delivering beverages that arrived from out-of-state. Under those facts, the flow of the goods was in interstate commerce, and plaintiff Nieto's deliveries "although intrastate, were essentially the last phase of a continuous journey of the interstate commerce . . ." Hence, the trial court concluded that Nieto was engaged in interstate commerce, was not required to arbitrate under the  FAA, and could proceed in court with wage and hour claims brought under California law. The Court of Appeal affirmed.

Arbitration, PAGA, FAA, Waiver, Deadlines: Fourth District, Div. 1 Rules California Courts Are Still Bound By Iskanian, Despite SCOTUS Arbitration Cases

Case Contains Rich Discussion Of Arbitration, PAGA, Federal Preemption, And Divergence Of State And Federal Law.

    Plaintiffs sued their former employer, alleging wage and hour violations and seeking civil penalties under California's Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA). Employer successfully petitioned to arbitrate, with one exception: the trial court held that under Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014), the PAGA claim could not be arbitrated, without the consent of the state. A PAGA claim is in the nature of a qui tam action, and the state has a stake in the outcome. Employer appealed the adverse PAGA ruling. Correia v. NB Baker Electric, Inc., D073798 (4/1  2/25/19) (Haller, McConnell, Nares).

    The Court of Appeal affirmed. Notwithstanding SCOTUS cases such as Epic and Concepcion, finding that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) has broad preemptive scope, the Court of Appeal holds that Iskanian is still good law, because the federal cases did not address the precise question presented by Iskanian, because Iskanian involves a claim for civil penalties brought on behalf of the state, and the enforceability of an agreement barring a PAGA representative action in any forum. 

    The Court notes that some federal cases have found that, even if an agreement barring a representative action in any forum is unenforceable under Iskanian, Iskanian does not prevent a court from directing a representative action to arbitration. As the Court explains, however, California appellate courts have reached a different conclusion, based on the fact that in a PAGA action, the State of California plays a role. 

    COMMENT: The Court acknowledges, "[T]here are different ways of viewing a qui tam lawsuit regarding the true claim owner and whether the state and the employee can both be considered to be real parties in interest in the lawsuit for purposes of evaluating an employee's authority to waive rights to bring claims in court." The PAGA claim seems to have a mixed nature, because state authority is required, explicitly or implicitly, for the employee to proceed with the claim, and the state gets 75% of the penalty. On the other hand, the employee brings the claim, and the state does not supervise the litigation. However, the Court explains that at the time of the predispute waiver, the state still retains authority over the claim. Under the Court's reasoning, the state could waive rights to a court forum at the time the dispute arises. Of course, there is no reason to expect that to ever happen.

    The opinion also points out a deadline trap for the unwary. The employer argued that plaintiffs' response to its arbitration petition was untimely. Plaintiffs treated the petition as a motion to which a response would be due nine court days before the hearing, but a response is due 10 days after the arbitration moving papers are served. (Code Civ. Proc., section 1290.6). Fortunately for plaintiffs, the Court of Appeal said that it was not clear whether the arbitration petition statute or the general motions statute governed, but in either case, the deadline was not jurisdictional.  The safe solution for the practitioner is to calendar the earlier response date.

    

Arbitration, FAA, Standard of Review: 9th Circuit Agrees With District Court That Arbitrator's Award Was "Irrational"

"We have become an arbitration nation," says the Court.

    The 9th Circuit affirmed the district court's order vacating an arbitration award under the Federal Arbitration Act, concluding that the arbitrator acted beyond his powers, rendering an award that was "irrational", failing to "draw the essence of the award" from subcontracts. Aspic Engineering and Construction Company v. ECC Centcom Constructors LLC, et al., No. 17-16510 (9th Cir.  1/28/19) (Smith, Nguyen, Restani).

    Aspic, a local Afghan construction company, acted as a subcontractor for the prime contractor, ECC, in support of EEC's contracts with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The subcontracts incorporated obligations that ECC owed to the U.S. government, and Federal Acquisition Regulations governing termination for convenience. (Termination for convenience refers to termination at any time without liability for damages that the other side might suffer). When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers terminated for convenience its contracts with ECC, ECC did the same with Aspic.

    Aspic sued for damages, and received an award from the arbitrator, who believed "ECC could not expect that ASPIC would be capable of modifying their local business practices to completely and strictly conform to the US governmental contracting practices that were normal to ECC. There was not a true meeting of minds . . . " Apparently, the arbitrator believed it would be unfair to inflict the Federal Acquisition Regulations upon Aspic, and based the award on the damages Aspic had suffered.

    The arbitrator's award was confirmed and modified by a state court, ECC removed to the federal district court, the district court vacated the award, and the 9th Circuit affirmed the district court.

    "We have become an arbitration nation," wrote Judge Smith. "An increasing number of private disputes are resolved not by courts, but by arbitrators. Although courts play a limited role in reviewing arbitral awards, our duty remains an important one. When an arbitrator disregards the plain text of a contract without legal justification simply to reach a result that he believes is just, we must intervene." The court concluded that the arbitrator's award exceeded his authority, failed to draw the essence of the award from the subcontracts, "disregarded specific provision of the plain text" in an effort to prevent an unfair result, and was "irrational."

    COMMENT: Exceeding the powers of the arbitrator is a basis for vacatur in California and federal courts. However, "failing to draw the essence of the award" from the contract is language originating in federal cases in the context of collective bargaining. "[A]n arbitrator is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement; he does not sit to dispense his own brand of industrial justice. He may of course look for guidance from many sources, yet his award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement. When the arbitrator's words manifest an infidelity to this obligation, courts have no choice but to refuse enforcement of the award." United Steelworkers of Am. v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597 (1960). We would not expect to find this language in a California state case involving vacatur of an arbitration award.

 

    

Arbitration, Delegation, Arbitrability, FAA: Despite Delegation Clause, Court Decides Whether Transportation Worker's Contract Falls Within FAA's Ambit

This Is One Of Those Rare Cases In Which A Delegation Clause Is Not Enforced.

    Generally, a court will decide arbitrability of a dispute unless that issue is clearly and unmistakably delegated to an arbitrator, as was the case here. But there are exceptions, and New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira (S. Ct. 1/15/19) addresses an important exception. (Gorsuch, author, Ginsburg conc.). The case was the subject of an earlier 10/1/18 post.

    The wage dispute involved New Prime Inc., an interstate trucking company, and Dominic Oliveira, who works as one of its drivers, and who, for purposes of this appeal, accepted his status as an independent contractor. Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act carves out from its coverage "contracts of employment  of . . . workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." Everyone agreed that Mr. Oliveira was a worker engaged in interstate commerce. But was he, as an independent contractor, covered by a "contract of employment." Yes, explains Justice Gorsuch, because when the FAA was enacted in 1925, employees and independent contractors were covered by contracts of employment. The meaning of the word "employment" has wandered over time, so now, an employee - employer - employment relationship has a meaning distinct from that of an independent contractor relationship. But as a textualist, Justice Gorsuch, quoting from another case, reminds us: "[I]t's a 'fundamental canon of statutory construction' that words generally should be 'interpreted as taking their ordinary . . . meaning . . . at the time congress enacted the statute.'" Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States, 585 U.S. __, __ (2018) (slip op., at 9). And the statute's sequencing is important, so the courts get to decide the threshold question of whether the section 1 exclusion applies to remove the arbitration clause from the ambit of the FAA.

     COMMENT: This opinion is an interesting exercise in textualism, and as such, involves solving a statutory word puzzle and delving in to mouldy dictionaries. And that's where Justice Ginsburg comes in with her concurrence, agreeing with the proposition in Wisconsin Central Ltd., but taking care to qualify it to acknowledge that Congress may design legislation to govern changing times and circumstances, and that some statutes should be construed flexibly to effectuate remedial purposes. Not really a problem, however, with this specific case, and in fact, Justice Gorsuch writes, "statutes may sometimes refer to an external source of law and fairly warn readers that they must abide that external source of law, later amendments and modifications included." But here, there is no good reason to depart from the existing meaning of the statute. For a description of the textualism espoused by Justice Scalia, see my recent review of Richard Hasen's The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption.

    It is somewhat refreshing to see that, despite political divisions, SCOTUS can still reach agreement on a case.

    The case does address a question I have been curious about: why did Congress exclude "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce"? Justice Gorsuch writes that "[b]y the time it adopted the Arbitration Act in 1925, Congress had already prescribed alternative employment dispute resolution regimes for many transportation workers."

Arbitration, Gateway Issues: SCOTUS Holds That When Parties Agree Arbitrator Will Resolve Arbitrability Question, There Is No "Wholly Groundless" Exception Allowing Question To Be Decided By Court

First SCOTUS Opinion Authored By Justice Kavanaugh Is Unanimous.

    "Under the Federal Arbitration Act, parties to a contract may agree that an arbitrator rather than a court will resolve disputes arising out of the contract." The question presented in Henry Schein, Inc., et al. v. Archer and White Sales, Inc., No. 17-1272 (S. Ct. 1/8/19), is whether courts can decide arbitrability if the basis for arbitration is "wholly groundless", and whether such an exception to delegation of the decision to the arbitrator is consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act. In the first opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court unanimously holds that a "wholly groundless" exception is inconsistent with the FAA. 

    COMMENT: The Justices "express no view about whether the contract at issue in this case in fact delegated the arbitrability issue to an arbitrator." So the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and remanded, and the Court of Appeals may address the delegation issue. 

    In some instances, where the gateway decision of arbitrability is delegated to the arbitrator, the basis for delegation is "wholly groundless", and the arbitrator reaches the wrong conclusion, the arbitrator may exceed the arbitrator's powers, leading to "back-end" judicial review, and a waste of time. But SCOTUS is not going to rewrite the FAA.

    

    

Arbitration Deadlines: 9th Circuit Holds That Petition To Vacate Arbitration Award Is One Day Late

Opinion Clarifies How To Perform Calculation.

    In Stevens v. Jiffy Lube, No. 17-15965 (9th Cir. 12/27/18) (McKeown, Fletcher, Bybee), the panel affirms the district court's denial of a petition to vacate an arbitration award, on the grounds that the petition was one day late. In doing so, it clarifies how to calculate the deadline.

    The arbitration award was delivered on September 14, 2016, and the petition was filed on December 15, 2016. Look to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(a) for how to calculate the three-month filing deadline under the Federal Arbitration Act's three-month filing deadline. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply to FAA proceedings, unless the FAA provides otherwise.

    1. When the period is stated in days or a longer unit of time (here, three months), exclude the day of the event that triggers the period, here, September 14, 2016.

    2.  Count every day, including intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.

    3. Include the last day of the period, but if the last days is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the period continues to run until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.

    

Arbitration, FAA, Adequacy of Record, Collateral Estoppel, Fees: Five Unpublished Cases Involving Hodgepodge Of Issues Result In Four Affirmances And One Dismissal.

Arbitration Cases Fly Under The Radar.

    In recent years, I have concentrated more on published arbitration cases than on unpublished cases -- first, because the unpublished cases are not citable in California state courts, and second, because there are simply so many of them. However, today, I have gathered five unpublished cases appearing in just the last five days to make three points:

    First, all five cases involve affirmances, or in one case, a grant of defendants'/respondents motion to dismiss the appeal. And this is an example of what we know to be true: it is very difficult in the courts to undo results of an arbitration.

    Second, the five unpublished cases demonstrate just how widely arbitration is now used to resolve myriad disputes: Loeffler v. RSM 8, LLC, No. G055100 (4/3 10/25/18) (Thompson, Fybel, Ikola) (dispute between home buyer and seller); Kivorkian v. Star Insurance Company, No. B272162 (2/3 10/26/18) (Egerton, Lavin, Dhanidina) (dispute between injured driver and insurance company); Belnap v. Pierce, No. D071245 (4/1  10/26/18) (O'Rourke, Nares, Haller) (partnership dispute between two dentists); Axten v. Axten, No. D073089 (4/1  10/30/18) (Guerrero, O'Rourke, Dato) (dispute between ex-spouses concerning attorney fees and costs award); Kote v. Blonska et al., No. G055436 (4/3  10/30/18) (Thompson, Aronson, Ikola) (dispute concerning accounting by trustee).

    Third, the five unpublished cases provide an example of how arbitration-related issues tend to fly under the radar. First, the arbitration itself is usually a private affair, without precedential importance. Second, when arbitration issues do end up in the appellate courts, resulting in written opinions, then the written opinions, like most generated by the California Courts of Appeal, are unpublished and uncitable. That is the case with all five of these unpublished opinions, appearing over a span of five calendar days. During the same time period, as of the time of this post, I had not seen any published California state court appellate opinion involving arbitration.

    As to the issues addressed by these five opinions, here is a brief and incomplete rundown:

•  Loeffler -- whether the FAA governed, whether the arbitration award was untimely, and whether the arbitrator should have issued a statement of decision;
• Kivorkian  -- whether a bad faith action filed to attack an arbitration constituted an improper collateral attack on the arbitration award;
• Belnap -- whether plaintiff's claims were barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel;
• Axten -- whether an adequate record allowed review of a claim on the merits and whether the arbitrator determined appellant was a prevailing party;
• Kote -- whether a notice of appeal of an order confirming an award was proper in the absence of a judgment.