it please the court good morning my name is chris helmick i'm counsel for defendant in appellant farmers of north america with the court's permission i'd like to reserve three minutes for rebuttal this case asks a simple question when arbitration association there's that simple statement require the parties to actually present their demand for arbitration to be administered by the aaa we think the answer is an unequivocal yes there's a case that well that's the interesting thing your honor r c were you where are those cases well there's there is one directly on point from the california public court that's maggio and that and the ninth circuit and cox also deals with that but interestingly this this issue rarely comes about in this court for example there's only been one case where one report excuse me in one case it isn't an reported case that i disclosed in the in the lucio where the arbitration agreement provides for two different panels of arbitrators depending on the dispute and the judge was asked to choose between the two the judge chose and the losing party appealed to this court and the court resolved the issue but this doesn't happen very often and so i there's an absence of authority in the absence of authority is not itself authority so well my opposition that you put forth that because the rules say so because the contract says we're going to apply our aaa rules it's not uncommon for parties to incorporate rules or concepts outside of their  agreement but that doesn't necessarily determine that aaa has to be the arbitrator affair or are there our other arbitration rules and parties can choose to apply uniform rules of arbitration and different different rules and courts do this with applying state rules vs federal rules or it just doesn't seem that the language is anywhere close to a mandatory requirement the aaa be for him it's a fair point your honor in these parties in an employment contract could have agreed to adopt any set of rules but they chose the aaa rules and the aaa rules and  so what happens the error that the district court made is that the is that the district court said i will look at one rule rule through that says if a party agrees to arbitrat we can use but it doesn't say that that they are that the parties are obligated to go to aaa it's don't see anything in it that prevents the parties from choosing to use a different arbitrator so so now you get your honor that fair point you get to the issue that it's discussed in say the versus fallow versus high tech where where this court talks about basic contract interpretation principles when you incorporate a a set of rules like this it's incorporated and as if it's completely written now and then the most rudimentary task is to read the rules together read the contract together to harmonize it so that there are  contract works for itself now what the what the district court didn't do is read the entire rule three first of all so rule three goes on to say aaa will then assign the arbitration to one  aaa offices but it's even more fundamental than that when you're applying the rules rule four says that when you want to initiate an arbitration the claimant has to file their demand with aaa what was the last may decide ok may assign and and it but but but that's still and if the aaa assigns it to somebody outside of tripoli as office it could do that i don't dispute that but that doesn't that doesn't then take aaa out of the administration role the arbitrator could be from jams with no affiliation with aaa the issue here for example your honor the defendants or the respondents response is triggered based off of aaa is notice the if the parties can't agree on an arbitrator aaa will select the arbitrator the reason these rules and aaa is administration is relevant and substantive to my client is because aaa will come forward with its own panel of arbitrators my client and i are not from the area and so we we depend on getting a a substantial panel that is that is provided and vetted but more importantly aaa also if you're in an arbitration that's administered by aaa and you disagree with how the mounts to no denial of arbitration the court didn't deny arbitration so why do we even have jurisdiction of this issue this same the same way that this court had jurisdiction to decide costal twenty five years ago the court is ordered in excuse me in section four says that the that the court must order arbitration consistent with the parties agreement and so if the court arder orders arbitration before a forum or a venue that is inconsistent with the party's agreement then then the court is not ordering arbitration consistent there of and i would argue that there simply  and this court said we have that an issue in dispute at the time was whether this court had appellate jurisdiction in this court said yes we do to ensure that that the court was complying with section four and i would argue also section two  of title nine that the court has to order arbitration consistent with the parties agreement and i think when you read that when you read the contract in the rules to gather to harmonize them there is no ambiguity triple a i concede your honor you could triple a could assign an arbitrator that has nothing to do with with aaa but that doesn't mean that the aaa is out of the administration in fact the aaa continues the process all the way to the end regardless of who the arbitrator is and in fact even under aaa rules we could agree to appoint a non lawyer arbitrator but aaa would still be report what have you done since there was there was a request for a status report and we did provide a status report and we told the court we told the district court that we were appealing we filed the notice of appeal i think on th district court to reconsider there is no of course there's no real rule for a motion for reconsideration i understand that it why i'm not suggesting that but i'm just sort of a follow up to the chief question about jur and i have to tell you sometimes in thinking about this case especially now after hearing arguments of the appellant i feel as though we are two ships passing in the night because the reality in my mind is that i'm talking about a different contract i'm talking about an employment contract that's what the court considered when it is order of the pardon me of october ten two thousand and seventeen when it determined that there was ambiguity in the sixty eight words that made up the arbitration agreement and determined that if the diff if the drafter of the agreement the employer wanted  private it ministration there was nothing wrong with it and that's why i him urged the court to follow his directive to uphold his order  nothing wrong with private arbitration there's nothing here that compels aaa to stick it's the foot in the middle of it the parties could agree on seems to want to contend that it in fact it's made it very clear that what they really want to do is run up costs we want to drive my client mr web financially to the point where he gives up his cause so that hit he's caught he's forced to reconsider even pursuing his severance claim and backing away from it and foregoing his entire case he's put that very clearly before you it's included in the appendix that we file that's the real motivation here and let's also be this employer intends to hold this court hostage it's virtually told you so that's why he's bothered to point to an old case from two thousand the hugs and kisses case because let me ask you about that if you proceed with this with the aaa arbitrator does your client run the risk of having already received making well that's where i hope that this court would make their decision very clear to the employer assuming we have jurisdiction well that that is an issue i raised i question whether there was  jurisdiction because i didn't see anything in the response that counsel wrote to the judge to judge by time that would have raised jurisdiction for such an action that we're here on  but presuming you have jurisdiction i would hope that you would make a very clear statement directing them to p this mediation or pardon me in this arbitration because otherwise we are going through academic exercise first in determining that arbitration if we're going to compel it purview of these private organizations that exist to administer arbitrations that private arbitrations is legal it's effective it's permitted and that second that parties if they elect to do so and these are beautiful words of the supreme court wrote i can't tell you how long ago but i know that this court has adopted it time and time again it's a matter of consent and honor i believe that what my client agreed to was a language held in his employment contract and it was it didn't say by the rules it said pursuant to the rules and that language is very can't exactly tell you what he agreed to because that was sixty eight words barely state in my mind an arbitrator arbitration agreement but the court found it and it direct this the district court has made its position very clear the employment agreement has ambiguity in it including in the sixty eight words that has created the employment or pardon me the arbitration language and it's held it against the drafter and that's why it said it its own language if it intended to have aaa administer this sounds incumbent from the language that the parties would need to agree yes or is there been any discussion as to that how these parties can agree and it doesn't sound like you've been able to do very much of that throughout this  pointed to the hugs and kisses case as a sense of why i asked or if the court were to find that it had jurisdiction of ask for a clear and direct statement i think judge gaetan recognizes that in its order when it directed us to cooperate and i think that's what would be involved i tried to do that but your case is going nowhere and i'm terribly upset about that and so is my client i'm more than anxious to advance this case let's approach it this way suppose we say that we have jurisdiction we have firm judge a guy tons ruling which held that the parties have to agree upon an arbitrator you go back down below and you can't agree then do we get another appeal no i would presume distinguished i don't care how well i should but they are a very distinguished labor and employment firm they can't agree with you well the other side of it now do we get another appeal i'm an agreeable person we can work something out i don't know if i want to write