Case ID: ohio_3/html/0270-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      *By the Court :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Strum v. Cunningham.
    Award must show that the arbitrators met at the time and place specified in the submission, or it is bad.
    Tried before Judges Hitchcock and Burnet, in Shelby county, 1827.
    This was an action of slander, brought to issue in the common pleas, and then submitted to arbitration. Bonds were executed in conformity with the statute, by which the submission was to be made a rule of the court of common pleas. The arbitrators awarded that the defendant should pay to the plaintiff the sum of sixty-two dollars; that the suit then pending should be discontinued, and that the parties should execute mutual releases.
    On motion before the common pleas, the submission was made a rule. The defendant took a bill of exceptions, and brought a writ of error to set aside the rule.
    Several errors were assigned. But the error chiefiy relied on was, that it did not appear from any of the proceedings that the arbitrators had met at the time and place required by the submission,
    Bacon argued for the pi aintiff.
    Chaplain, for defendant.
   *By the Court :

The statute authorizing and regulating arbitrations, requires that the arbitration bond shall specify some time arid place, at which the arbitrators shall attend to hear and determine the matters in dispute. The bonds executed in this case, contain such a provision., but it does not appear that it was observed. For anything we can discover, the arbitrators might have met at another time, and at a different place, and the award may have been exparte. The same motive which induced the legislature to require that a time and place should be agreed on, and stated in the submission, requires also that the agreement in that respect should be strictly observed. They have not trusted to parol proof of this part of the agreement, but have directed that it shall form a part of the submission, and for the same reason, the performance of it should appear from the award. But whether parol proof be admissible or not, for this purpose it must appear, from some part of the proceedings, that the auditors did meet at the time and place agreed on. As this does not appear, the rule must be set aside, and the case remanded for further proceedings.