Second District, Division 8 Does Find Procedural Issue Might Deserve Supreme Court Review, But Affirms Merits Awards.
In Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. v. Bernard, Case No. B207865 (2d Dist., Div. 8 Feb. 22, 2010) (certified for publication), arbitration awards of $12.3 million for lost management fees and $6.7 million in attorney’s fees, costs, and interest were sustained on appeal.
The appellate court found that defendant’s response to a petition to confirm the award—with a short-fused 10-day deadline—was timely, although noting the muddled state of the law when squaring this short deadline with the 100 day deadline for filing a petition to vacate. “We believe the time may have come for our Supreme Court to provide definitive guidance on the time deadlines a party who seeks to vacate an arbitration award faces when the prevailing party in an arbitration has filed a petition to confirm the award.” (Slip Opn., p. 8.) However, the Court of Appeal did find that the response by defendant was timely.
However, that was hardly the end of the analysis. Because neither legal error nor merits flaws are usually reviewable when it comes to arbitration awards, the appellate panel found Moncharsh’s rule applicable, especially since the parties did not provide that legal errors were reviewable in court and further specified that the arbitrator’s decision was binding in nature.