|
The Alabama Supreme Court has held that a party must file a motion to vacate an arbitration award with the circuit court to preserve its right to further appeal, and that the time limit for challenging an award was extended to 42 days from the date of the award by the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure.
In Horton Homes, Inc. v. Shaner, Nos. 1061659, 1061741, 2008 WL 2469364 (Ala., June 20, 2008), an arbitration award was entered in favor of Shaner and against Horton. Four days after the award was issued, Shaner submitted the award to the circuit court, and the clerk entered a judgment on the award. Forty-two days after the award was issued, Horton file a notice of appeal to the Court, challenging the award and the judgment entered.
Shaner alleged that Horton's appeal was not proper because Horton did not file a motion to vacate or set aside the award with the circuit court within the statutory time period before filing notice of appeal to a higher court. Shaner maintained that Horton was required by statute to file the notice of appeal with the circuit court "within 10 days after receipt of notice of the award." See Ala. Code § 6-6-15. Horton argued that this 10 day limit was modified by Ala. R. App. P. 4, extending the time allowed for notices of appeal to 42 days from the entry of the award.
First, the Court held that the 10 day limit on appealing arbitration awards was extended by the enactment of Ala. R. App. P. 4. The Court had previously suggested in dicta that § 6-6-15 remained unmodified because it was not included in a list of statutes designated as modified in the Rules of Appellate Procedure Appendix. Birmingham News Co. v. Horn, 901 So.2d 27, 42 (Ala. 2004). However, the Court now noted that the 1940 Alabama Code provision dealing with arbitration appeals – eventually re-codified as § 6-6-15 – was included in the Appendix, a fact the Court overlooked when deciding Birmingham News.
The Birmingham News dictum was applied by the civil appellate court to retain the 10 day limit, despite applying the 42-day limit prior to Birmingham News. Compare Chambers v. Courtesy Pontiac-GMC Trucks, Inc., 969 So.2d 167, 168-69 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007) (citing Birmingham News as dicta suggesting retention of the 10 day limit for appeals), with Sanderson Group, Inc. v. Smith, 809 So.2d 823, 827 (Ala. Civ. App. 2001) (finding that Rule 4 expanded the appeal time limit to 42 days). To avoid further confusion, the Court explicitly held that Ala. R. App. P. 4 did, in fact, extend the time period allowed for appeals of arbitration awards from 10 days to 42 days.
Next, the Court held that a party must file a motion to vacate or set aside an award with the circuit court within the statutory time period in order to preserve its right to appeal the award to a higher court. However, the Court found that the 10 day time limit placed on the circuit court review process – including filing the motion to vacate, allowing the nonmoving party to respond, and considering the arguments – was "impractical" and "unreasonable." Instead, the Court decided to "borrow" the rule of civil procedure applicable to motions to alter, amend, or vacate judgments, and apply it to motions challenging arbitration awards. See Ala. R. Civ. P. 59(e).
Fashioning the new rule, the Court declared that "a party desiring judicial review of an arbitration award… must file in the appropriate circuit court a motion to alter, amend, vacate, or set aside the award within 30 days of filing the notice of appeal." Then, "[i]f that motion is timely filed, the circuit court shall have 90 days… to dispose of that motion."
Finally, the Court allowed Horton to file its motion within the new time limits, noting that its reliance on the contrary rule in a prior decision was reasonable. See H & S Homes, L.L.C. v. McDonald, 910 So.2d 79, 80-81 (Ala. 2004) (holding that Horton's notice of appeal with the appellate court and not the circuit court was proper).
Subscribe to a free weekly update on ADR case law and
legislation
|