Timeliness Of Challenges Highlighted In This One.
In Schwartz v. Schwartz, Case No. D071445 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Sept. 15, 2017) (unpublished), family members (the Schwartzs) got into a squabble, with William Schwartz winning against Joel Schwartz after a contested arbitration. The rub, and there usually is one from our perspective, is an attorney’s fees clause in some of the operating agreements between the two sides. William won $264,559.89 in attorney’s fees and costs against Joel, most of them fees and costs advanced by William’s Oregon attorneys who were not licensed to practiced law or admitted pro hac vice in California, the venue where the arbitration was held. Joel challenged the fee award as illegal based on the extraterritoriality licensing issues, but to no avail. The end result: Joel waived the illegality consideration on two fronts: (1) he failed to raise the issue in the arbitration (waiving judicial review by the trial court); and (2) he failed to raise the issue in the superior court before submission of it in a reply brief which did not allow due process rebuttal by William (waiving judicial review by the appellate court).