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Confirming an arbitration award, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that it will not review an arbitrator's evidentiary rulings unless those rulings deprive a party of a fundamentally fair hearing.
In Bolton v. Bernabei & Katz, PLLC, Nos. 05-CV-642, 05-CV-860 (D.C. July 31, 2008), Bolton retained Bernabei & Katz (B & K) to represent her in a lawsuit, and the retainer contract contained an arbitration agreement. After Bolton failed to pay them, B & K terminated the representation.
Bolton repeatedly failed to pay B & K, and Bolton eventually requested arbitration pursuant to the parties' agreement. The arbitrator conducted a hearing and ruled in favor of B & K. Bolton still refused to pay, so B & K moved to confirm the award. The trial court granted B & K's motion to confirm, finding no evidence that the arbitrator disregarded the law or excluded material evidence that prejudiced Bolton's rights. Bolton appealed.
On appeal, Bolton argued that the arbitrator refused to hear evidence material to the controversy in violation of D.C. Code § 16-4311(a)(4) (paralleling § 10(a)(3) of the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA")). Bolton argued that the arbitrator's erroneous evidentiary rulings and insistence on Bolton's in-person testimony at the hearing were erroneous and improper.
The Court rejected Bolton's argument, stating that "Bolton misapprehends the scope of our review." According to the Court, "[c]onducting the intensive review that Bolton suggests would force us to 'superintend [the] arbitration proceedings.'" Explaining the proper scope of its review, the Court declared that "we are neither required nor authorized 'to comb the record for technical errors in the receipt or rejection of evidence by arbitrators' . . . Rather, '[o]ur review is restricted to determining whether the procedure was fundamentally unfair.'"
The Court then held that, because she was represented and afforded the opportunity to present her case, Bolton failed to demonstrate that the arbitrator's rulings violated principles of fundamental fairness or that she suffered prejudice of a magnitude that would warrant vacatur.
Bolton also argued that the arbitral proceedings were "procedurally defective" because she never formally agreed to arbitrate the amount in controversy before the arbitrator. The Court treated Bolton's argument as a claim that the arbitrators exceeded their powers in violation of D.C. Code § 16-4311(a)(3) (paralleling FAA § 10(a)(4)). The Court disagreed, finding that she explicitly agreed to arbitrate "any fee dispute," was the first party to invoke arbitration, was kept informed of the amount of fees in dispute throughout the proceedings, and fully participated in the arbitration. Thus, the Court affirmed the award's confirmation.
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