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Reaffirming the principle that arbitrators are not required to resolve all issues of a dispute in a single award, a California appellate court confirmed a second arbitration award in a trust allocation dispute after the parties' first arbitration award specifically left open the possibility of further modifications to the award.
In Roehl v. Ritchie, No. G036999, 2007 WL 259700 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 31, 2007), Ritchie and Roehl were beneficiaries of the Roehl Family Trust (Trust). The Trust agreement provided for arbitration of disputes, and the parties entered arbitration to resolves disputes about allocation.
Two months later, the arbitrator issued an award that resolved some of the parties' disputes, but also allowed the arbitrator to modify distributions in the future following any "new developments." Ritchie, a niece of the trust settlor, obtained judicial confirmation of the first award, and the arbitrator subsequently issued a second award with more detailed allocations of the remaining trust property.
The Court upheld confirmation of the second arbitral award. As a bright-line rule, arbitrators are not permitted to "amend" their awards after they have been confirmed by a trial court. Delaney v. Dahl, 99 Cal.App.4th 647, 659 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002). In this case, however, the second arbitration award was not an attempt by the arbitrator to "amend" a previous award.
Here, the initial arbitration award was not final because its express terms left open the possibility that the arbitrator could make further "modifications" to his decision. Particularly with amorphous disputes such as the distribution of trust funds, arbitrators are free to issue multiple awards or awards that contemplate future proceedings. Hightower v. Superior Court, 86 Cal.App.4th 1415, 1431 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001). Therefore, there was no conflict between confirming both arbitration awards dealing with distribution of the Trust.
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