Case ID: f-appx_597/html/0025-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

N. Dean PASHA, Petitioner-Appellant, v. John M. JANSESHKI, Starboard International, L.L.C., Respondents-Appellees.
    No. 14-1870-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    March 12, 2015.
    Jeffery J. Daar, Daar & Newman Woodland Hills, CA, for Petitioner-Appellant.
    Philip J. Layfield, Layfield & Wallace, Irvine, CA, Donald Dinan, Roetzel & An-dress, LPA, Washington, DC, for Respondents-Appellees.
    
      Present: Guido Calabresi, Peter W. Hall, Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Petitioner-Appellant Dr. N. Dean Pasha seeks reversal of the district court’s denial of his petition to partially vacate or remand those portions of an arbitration award denying his counterclaims.

“In reviewing a district court’s decision refusing to vacate or confirming an arbitration award, we examine legal conclusions de novo and findings of fact for clear error.” Bermuda Container Line Ltd. v. Int'l Longshoremen’s Ass’n, AFL-CIO, 192 F.3d 250, 255 (2d Cir.1999). A district court may vacate an arbitration award under the Federal Arbitration Act

(1) where the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means;
(2) where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or either of them;
(3) where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and material to the controversy; or of any other misbehavior by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced; or
(4) where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made.

9 U.S.C. § 10(a). “[T]he court may [also] set aside an arbitration award if it was rendered in ‘manifest disregard of the law.’ ” Schwartz v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 665 F.3d 444, 451 (2d Cir.2011).

We agree with the district court’s well-reasoned opinion and conclude that none of these grounds support vacatur of the challenged portions of the arbitration award. The arbitration award was a final award for purposes of 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(4) even though it did not resolve the issue of whether Pasha would be entitled to 24.5% of the stock of a new joint venture company, should one be formed in the future, as that issue was not before it. See Rocket Jewelry Box, Inc. v. Noble Gift Packaging, Inc., 157 F.3d 174, 177 (2d Cir.1998) (per curiam) (“[T]he principle that an arbitration award is final if it ‘resolve[s] all issues submitted to arbitration, and determine^] each issue fully so that no further litigation is necessary to finalize the obligations of the parties’ does not require that the arbitration award resolve every outstanding issue that might arise in later litigation between the parties.”) (citation omitted) (quoting ConnTech Dev. Co. v. Univ. of Conn., 102 F.3d 677, 686 (2d Cir.1996)). Pasha has failed to demonstrate any other legitimate basis for vacating the award. He identifies no evidence that he was prohibited from introducing during the arbitration. See 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(3). Pasha’s disagreement with the arbitrator’s legal and factual conclusions does not render those determinations beyond the scope of the arbitrator’s powers or demonstrate that they were made in manifest disregard of the law.

We have carefully considered Pasha’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.