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A party's challenge to the confirmation of an arbitration award based on the absence of an agreement to arbitrate is a common law, contractual challenge to the award, and is not subject to time limitations on challenges expressed within a statute, according to the Connecticut Supreme Court.
In MBNA America Bank, N.A. v. Boata, No. 17668, 2007 WL 2089678 (Conn. July 31, 2007), MBNA and Boata participated in an arbitration proceeding, which resulted in an award in favor of MBNA, over Boata's defense that he never assented to an agreement to arbitrate claims. MBNA brought an application to confirm the arbitration award with the trial court, which was also granted over Boata's renewed objections to the existence of an arbitration agreement, holding that Boata had failed to challenge the award within a 30 day period after the award was issued as required by state statute. Boata appealed the confirmation to the appeals court, which reversed, holding that Boata's challenge to the award at the confirmation proceeding was timely, since a challenge to the existence of an agreement to arbitrate could be brought at any time before an entry of judgment.
The Court affirmed the appeals court, agreeing that Boata's challenge to the existence of an agreement to arbitration was timely. The Court held that Boata's challenge to the agreement to arbitrate was fundamentally different than the grounds for challenge specified under state statute that referenced a 30 day time limit to file a challenge after receiving notice of an award.
The Court differentiated between the statutory grounds for vacatur, modification, and confirmation and common law contractual grounds for denying confirmation, such as the lack of a valid agreement to arbitrate. The latter was held to be subject to the related statute requiring such challenges be brought within 30 days after the party received notification of the arbitrator's award, while the latter was preserved until final judgment was entered at confirmation. The latter grounds, such as those asserted by Boata, challenged the very authority for the arbitrator to hear the dispute; since the existence of an agreement to arbitrate was rooted in the common law of contract, and not in statute, the challenge of the existence of an agreement to arbitrate was not subject to the 30 day time limit specified only in statute.
The Court did specifically address the characterization used in prior cases that described the power of an arbitrator to hear a dispute as "subject matter jurisdiction." The Court expressly rejected such prior characterizations as confusing, in that it obscured the nature of the arbitrator's power. Since "subject matter jurisdiction" is the judicial power to hear disputes defined by the legislature and delegated to the courts, the term was held to be an improper characterization of an arbitrator's power, which, instead, is derived from the parties' contractual consent to that power.
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