MCI Constructors v. City of Greensboro
4th Cir. (N.C.), July 1, 2010
This appeal arises from a contract dispute concerning the construction of a wastewater treatment plant. All concerned parties agreed to submit to an arbitration which yielded an award to defendant. The district court then granted the defendant’s motion to confirm this award and this appeal followed. Plaintiffs claims, among other things, that the district court should have vacated the awards because the liability award was obtained through undue means.
In order for a court to vacate an arbitration award, the moving party must sustain the heavy burden of showing one of the grounds specified in the Federal Arbitration Act. Plaintiffs’ difficulty is that no court has ever suggested that the term undue means should be interpreted to apply to actions of counsel that are merely legally objectionable. While there is some evidence in the record to support plaintiffs’ assertions that the defendant presented its main arguments on rebuttal and at least on one occasion referred to evidence outside the record, plaintiffs failed to establish that these actions led to the procurement of the award. The FAA does not provide for vacatur in the event of any fraudulent conduct, but only where the award was procured by corruption, fraud or undue means. Since plaintiffs failed to proffer any evidence that the undue means in dispute actually factored into the arbitration panel’s liability determinations, plaintiffs’ motion to remand is denied and the district court’s decision is affirmed.
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Sarah Fang and Jeffrey Kingsley
https://www.goldbergsegalla.com/attorneys/Fang.html
https://www.goldbergsegalla.com/attorneys/Kingsley.html
case provided courtesy of Lexis