Filed 5/11/21 Pristine Environments v. Signet Jewelers CA4/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for 

publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication 

or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. 

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

PRISTINE ENVIRONMENTS, INC., 

Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

SIGNET JEWELERS LIMITED et al., 

Defendants and Respondents.

 D077282

 (Super. Ct. No. 

 37-2016-00016348-CU-FR-CTL)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, 

Richard S. Whitney, Judge. Affirmed.

Cappello & Noel and A. Barry Cappello, Wendy Dale Welkom, David L 

Cousineau, Lawrence James Conlan; Dunlap Codding and Evan W. Talley for 

Plaintiff and Appellant. 

Snell & Wilmer and Keith M. Gregory, Patrick William Kelly, Jeffrey 

M. Singletary, Todd Eric Lundell for Defendants and Respondents. 

Plaintiff and appellant Pristine Environments, Inc. (Pristine) appeals a 

judgment confirming an arbitration award in favor of defendants and 
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respondents Signet Jewelers Limited, et al. (Signet)1 and denying Pristine’s 

motion to vacate the arbitration award. Pristine contends the court 

erroneously found that its motion to vacate was untimely under Code of Civil 

Procedure2 section 1290.6, which according to Pristine did not apply here; but 

alternatively under that section it showed “good cause” for its untimely

response. Pristine maintains section 1005 applies here instead because the 

parties filed “motions” rather than “petitions,” and it complied with that 

section’s timeline. Pristine asks this court to remand the matter for the trial 

court to decide the merits of its motion to vacate. We affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Signet operates approximately 3,500 retail jewelry stores in the United 

States and Puerto Rico. Pristine provides facility maintenance services to 

retail businesses, and Signet contracted for Pristine to provide those services 

for all of Signet’s United States stores. The contract included an arbitration 

provision, which was invoked when a dispute arose. On February 18, 2019, 

the arbitration panel awarded Signet $317,302 in damages on its breach of 

contract claim. The panel further concluded that Signet breached some of its 

duties to Pristine, but declined to award damages because Pristine had failed 

to prove them.

On March 13, 2019, Signet filed a “motion to confirm arbitration 

award.” (Capitalization omitted.) A hearing date was originally scheduled 

for June 2019.

On May 29, 2019, Pristine filed a “motion to vacate arbitration award”

(capitalization omitted), contending that under either the California 

1 The other respondents are Signet Group Services US, Inc. and Joseph 

Albanese.

2 Undesignated statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
3

Arbitration Act (CAA) or the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), the panel 

exceeded its authority by “manifestly disregarding” the applicable laws, 

issuing an award that was “completely irrational,” and contravening public 

policy dealing with bad faith performance of contracts. A hearing date was 

originally scheduled for September 2019.

On May 31, 2019, the parties stipulated that the two motions would be 

heard together in September 2019, and set up a new calendar for submission 

of the opposition and reply papers. But they specifically agreed that their

stipulation did not “revive any deadlines, including but not limited to under 

section 1290.6, or waive any of defenses or arguments either party has to the 

timeliness of any opposition to [Signet’s] [m]otion . . . .”

Signet opposed Pristine’s motion to vacate, arguing it was untimely 

filed under section 1290.6, the claims failed on the merits because Pristine 

did not state a proper basis to vacate under the CAA, the FAA did not apply 

and, even if it did, the arbitration award was not “completely irrational” and 

the arbitrators did not “manifestly disregard” the law.

Despite the parties’ stipulation allowing for it, Pristine did not file a 

reply or address the issue of untimeliness, although it filed a document styled 

a “response in opposition to defendants’ motion to confirm arbitration award” 

(capitalization omitted), in which it merely incorporated by reference its 

arguments made in its motion to vacate.

The court in its tentative ruling relied on Elden v. Superior Court 

(1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 1497, 1511 and granted Signet’s motion to confirm the 

arbitration award upon concluding that under section 1290.6, after Signet 

filed the motion to confirm the arbitration award on February 18, 2019,

Pristine had 10 days (plus five days for mail service) to file its motion to 

vacate the award. However, Pristine did not do so until May 29, 2019. The 
4

court therefore concluded Pristine’s motion was untimely and it did not reach 

the merits of Pristine’s arguments. 

At a hearing on the motions, Pristine’s counsel acknowledged he had 

not “fully briefed” the issue in reply, but maintained Pristine’s motion to 

vacate was timely under section 1005. Pristine’s counsel stated: “After 

receiving the tentative last night, of course, [we were] not happy with it. We 

were able to go and research the issue a little more and did find a case on 

point [(Ruiz v. Moss Bros. Auto Group, Inc. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 836, 847, 

(Ruiz))].” Pristine’s counsel argued alternatively: “Under [section] 1290.6, 

the court, on good cause, can extend the time outside of that ten days to 

respond. And . . . the ten-day issue could have been raised [by Signet]. 

There’s three or four months in between there that it could have been done 

so, and it wasn’t. And, in fact, there was some sort of acquiescence.”

Signet’s counsel responded: “In terms of the question of a ‘petition’

versus a ‘motion,’ the statutes speak in terms of a ‘petition.’ But obviously, 

[Pristine] knew they were required to file a petition to vacate within 100 

days. [Pristine] filed it on the 100th day. [¶] Even though they styled it as a 

motion, they were really talking about semantics here.” Signet’s counsel 

added: “In terms of our acquiescence, it’s not our job to raise the 

untimeliness until we were opposing their motion to vacate. It’s not our job 

to alert plaintiff’s counsel to their obligations to file a response.” Signet’s 

counsel concluded, “I don’t hear anything that is good cause for extending 

that ten-day period.”

The court took the matter under submission to read the Ruiz case. It 

later confirmed its tentative ruling and entered a final order granting 

Signet’s motion to confirm the award.

DISCUSSION
5

As a general matter, a party seeking to vacate an arbitration award 

must either (1) file and serve a petition to vacate that award “not later than 

100 days after the date of the service of a signed copy of the award” (§ 1288; 

see Elden v. Superior Court, supra, 53 Cal.App.4th at p. 1511), or (2) file and 

serve a timely response (that is, within 10 days) to the other party’s petition 

to confirm the award. (§§ 1285.2, 1290.6; Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. 

v. Bernard (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 60, 66; South Bay Radiology Medical 

Associates v. Asher (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 1074, 1081.) “Unless the response 

is duly served and filed, under section 1290 the allegations of the petition are 

deemed to be admitted by respondent.” (DeMello v. Souza (1973) 36 

Cal.App.3d 79, 83.) The filing and service deadline for a petition to vacate is 

jurisdictional; noncompliance deprives a court of the power to vacate an 

award unless the party has timely requested vacation in response to a 

petition to confirm. (§ 1286.4, subds. (a) & (b); Oaktree, at pp. 64-65; Santa 

Monica College Faculty Assn. v. Santa Monica Community College Dist.

(2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 538, 544; Elden, at p. 1512.)

We conclude Pristine’s opposition to Signet’s motion to confirm was 

untimely under section 1290.6. After Signet filed its March 13, 2019 motion 

to confirm the arbitration award, Pristine had at most 15 days (including five 

days for mail service) to file its motion to vacate. However, it did not do so 

until May 29, 2019, approximately two months beyond the deadline. Because

Pristine did not timely seek to vacate the award, “the trial court had no 

alternative but to ‘confirm the award as made.’ ” (Eternity Investments, Inc. 

v. Brown (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 739, 746, quoting § 1286.) 

Pristine points out that under section 1290.6 the court for “good cause” 

could have extended the deadline for it to respond to Signet’s motion to 

confirm the award. Pristine adds that Signet was not prejudiced by any 
6

delay because it had ample opportunity to oppose Pristine’s position in its 

opposition and reply papers and at the hearing on the tentative ruling. 

Pristine further argues that both parties had styled their filings in the 

present action as “motions” rather than “petitions.” It relies on the Ruiz case, 

despite the fact the appellate court there specifically concluded that under

section 1290.6, which applied, the plaintiff’s opposition to the petition to 

compel arbitration was untimely filed. (Ruiz, supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at p. 

847.) The appellate court in Ruiz nonetheless held that the trial court had 

properly treated the petition as a motion for filing deadline purposes because 

the petitioner-defendant filed its reply papers five days before the hearing, 

“implicitly rel[ying] on section 1005, subdivision (b) as authority for filing its 

reply papers.” (Ruiz, supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at pp. 847-848; see § 1005, subd. 

(b) [“All papers opposing a motion . . . shall be filed . . . and . . . served on each 

party at least nine court days, and all reply papers at least five court days 

before the hearing.”].) Ruiz also pointed out that although the CAA (§ 1280 

et seq.) does not contemplate reply papers, the respondent-plaintiff filed and 

served his reply nine court days before the hearing, which was timely under 

section 1005. The Ruiz court further stated, “the reply papers avoided any 

prejudice to [the petitioner-defendant] due to [the respondent-plaintiff]’s latefiled and served response papers.” (Id. at p. 848.) Finally, Ruiz concluded 

that opposing counsel’s mistake in treating the petition as a motion was good 

cause to consider the otherwise untimely response. (Id. at p. 847.)

We apply an abuse of discretion standard to the trial court’s decision on 

whether Pristine demonstrated good cause for the court to consider its 

untimely-filed opposition to Signet’s motion to confirm. (Correia v. NB Baker 

Elec., Inc. (2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 602, 609; Ruiz, supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at p.

847.) “A decision is an abuse of discretion only if it is ‘arbitrary, capricious, 
7

entirely lacking in evidentiary support, unlawful, or procedurally unfair.’ ” 

(Mooney v. Garcia (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 229, 235.) When two or more 

inferences can reasonably be deduced from the facts, a reviewing court lacks 

power to substitute its deductions for those of the trial court. (Nestle v. City 

of Santa Monica (1972) 6 Cal.3d 920, 925.)

Presented with opposing arguments, the court could have reasonably 

concluded Pristine did not show good cause for its untimely response to the 

motion to confirm the arbitration award, and Pristine’s argument relying on 

section 1005 was unpersuasive. At least as of the May 2019 stipulation, 

Pristine was on notice that its motion to vacate was untimely. The 

stipulation also permitted Pristine to file a reply. Nevertheless, when Signet 

opposed Pristine’s motion to vacate based on untimeliness, Pristine did not 

file a reply challenging Signet’s claims but instead waited until the hearing 

on the motions, where its counsel conceded that upon reading the court’s 

tentative ruling that Pristine’s filing was untimely, he decided to research 

the issue and discovered the Ruiz case; he also claimed reliance on section 

1005 for the first time at that hearing. Finally, although Pristine argues it 

showed good cause by pointing to a supposed absence of prejudice to Signet, 

such absence of prejudice is not itself a showing of good cause. (Accord, Katz 

v. Campbell Union High Sch. Dist. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 1024, 1036 [“ ‘The 

good cause which must be shown in such a case as this “may be equated to a 

good reason for a party’s failure to perform that specific requirement [of the 

statute] from which he seeks to be excused.” ’ ”].) Pristine did not proffer a 

good reason for its delayed opposition to the motion to confirm the arbitration 

award. Under these circumstances, we conclude the court did not abuse its 

discretion in finding Pristine failed to show good cause.

DISPOSITION
8

The judgment is affirmed. Respondents Signet Jewelers Limited, 

Signet Group Services US, Inc. and Joseph Albanese are awarded their costs 

on appeal.

O’ROURKE, J.

I CONCUR IN THE RESULT:

HALLER, Acting P. J.

I CONCUR: 

AARON, J.