Opinion ID: 2570282
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Removal of Respondent's Excessive Labor Rates Was a Statutorily Authorized Clarification

Text: As the court of appeals noted, clarifying is not defined in the Act. Sholar Group Architects, 97 P.3d at 262. When construing statutes, we undertake de novo review and look first to the plain language, always striving to give effect to the General Assembly's intent and chosen legislative scheme. E.g., In re Marriage of Chalat, 112 P.3d 47, 2005 WL 1138538, at  (Colo.2005). We interpret every word, rendering none superfluous; undefined words and phrases are read in context and construed literally according to common usage. Colo. Water Conservation Bd. v. Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy Dist., 109 P.3d 585, 597, 599 (Colo.2005) (citing People v. Yascavage, 101 P.3d 1090, 1093 (Colo.2004)). Furthermore, if the statute is clear and unambiguous, we unreservedly apply it as written. E.g., In re Marriage of Chalat, 112 P.3d 47, 2005 WL 1138538, at . Relevant here and comporting with common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary defines clarify as [t]o clear of confusion or uncertainty. Joseph P. Pickett et al., eds., American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.2000). The word does not connote a reassessment or redetermination, but rather involves making something clear or understandable. Thus, applying the unambiguous statute as written, when an arbitrator determines upon a party's motion or the court's remand that an award is unclear, he or she may clarify it as necessary. This does not mean that an arbitrator may reexamine the merits under the auspices of clarification  merely that an arbitrator's mistake, ambiguity, or general lack of clarity may require elucidation for the parties and reviewing courts to make sense of an arbitration award. The court of appeals rejected clarification in the present case, finding no evident, patent ambiguity in the original award. Sholar Group Architects, 97 P.3d at 262. Such a requirement, however, does not appear in section 13-22-211. As just discussed, the General Assembly plainly declared that an arbitrator may modify or correct the award ... for the purpose of clarifying the award. § 13-22-211. This unambiguous phrase means that a confusing award may be clarified as required for better understanding. Nowhere does the statute impose an additional requirement that the confusion be evident or apparent strictly on the face of the award. Had the General Assembly intended to limit clarification to patently ambiguous awards, it would have said so. Accordingly, we will not read in such a requirement that the General Assembly plainly chose not to include. See In re Marriage of Chalat, 112 P.3d 47, 2005 WL 1138538, at  (citing Dikeou v. Dikeou, 928 P.2d 1286, 1292-93 n. 4 (Colo.1996)). [5] Moreover, ignoring section 13-22-211's plain language by reading in a patent ambiguity requirement would not make sense. The statutory authority to modify an award for clarification purposes is only bestowed upon the arbitrator; the reviewing court only may correct an evident miscalculation or descriptive mistake, imperfect form, or an award in which the arbitrator reached nonsubmitted matters. Compare § 13-22-211, with § 13-22-215. Since a reviewing court neither conducts the arbitration nor formulates and drafts the award, it has no basis apart from extrinsic evidence, see Landmark Petroleum, Inc., v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 870 P.2d 610, 613 (Colo.App.1993), upon which to correct miscalculations not evident on the award's face or to clarify a vague, confusing award. Only the arbitrator absolutely knows what was intended in the award. And, it is the arbitrator's intent, not the court's, for which the parties bargained. See § 13-22-215(2) ([T]he court shall modify and correct the award so as to effect its intent ....); Foust, 786 P.2d at 451-52 (concluding that reviewing court's task is to effectuate the clearly expressed intent of the arbitrator). Therefore, only the arbitrator properly can elucidate his or her intent obscured by a mistake, ambiguity, or general lack of clarity. See Osborn v. Packard, No. 03CA0679, 117 P.3d 77, 82, 2004 WL 2609566, at  (Colo. App. Nov.18, 2004) ([W]here an ambiguity cannot be resolved by the record, the court must not attempt to interpret the terms. Rather, the matter must be remanded to the arbitrator for clarification.) (citing Tri-State Bus. Machs., Inc. v. Lanier Worldwide, Inc., 221 F.3d 1015 (7th Cir.2000)). A rule preventing arbitrators from performing this function would ignore the reality that they make mistakes and overlook contingencies and leave much to implication and assumption, thereby cloth[ing] arbitrators with an ill-fitting mantle of infallibility. Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers Int'l Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, Local 182B v. Excelsior Foundry Co., 56 F.3d 844, 847 (7th Cir.1995). Indeed, not all arbitrators' errors are evident on the face of an award. For example, a slightly misplaced numeric decimal point might not be patently ambiguous, but the scrivener's error would prevent the arbitrator's intended ruling from taking effect. Since the reviewing court cannot correct such mistakes pursuant to the Act, it is necessary for the arbitrator to do so. Otherwise, the arbitrator's intended ruling on the merits, which the parties bargained for, may not be effected. Of course, the check against abuse of this function, as mentioned above, is that the arbitrator cannot announce clarification while in essence redetermining the merits. Having construed the statute, we now must decide whether the arbitrator's corrected award was justified under the narrow circumstances in section 13-22-211. Upon review, we conclude that it was. The corrected calculation of the amount Respondent earned for work completed can be characterized as a clarification of the initial award. Therefore, the arbitrator acted within his statutory modification authority, and the court of appeals erred in holding otherwise. Examining the initial order, it is clear that Petitioner prevailed on the central issue of whether Respondent had overcharged for labor. As the arbitrator declared in his initial award, the only evidence of hourly `... rates not higher than the standard paid at the place of the Project . . .' specific to the situation presented was that of [Petitioner's expert]. For that reason, the arbitrator stated that he was using Petitioner's submitted, proper labor rates to calculate the amount of recovery. Yet, despite that expressed intent, the arbitrator mistakenly included Respondent's improper, charged labor rates by including the general requirements cost category from numerous draws. When the arbitrator learned upon Petitioner's timely motion that he effectively double charged Petitioner for labor at both proper and improper rates, the arbitrator acknowledged by letter that he had miscalculated figures. And, when the district court directed the arbitrator to make requisite corrections, the arbitrator explained in his corrected award that he had miscalculate[d] proper labor charges because [t]he category of General Requirements was not used by the parties in this case as it usually is on construction projects. That is, the arbitrator mistakenly included Respondent's improper labor costs in several general requirements draws. In the corrected order, the arbitrator clearly remedied his mathematical error: I have now correctly computed my Corrected Award using just two cost categories, labor and non-labor. The just described error and correction sequence was a clarification of the initial award. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a plainer instance of an arbitrator modifying or correcting an award for the purpose of clarifying it. Here, the initial award was internally inconsistent. Petitioner prevailed on the issue of proper labor charges, and the arbitrator stated that he was applying Petitioner's labor calculations. Yet, the arbitrator charged both the submitted, proper labor costs and the billed, improper costs. In effect, the arbitrator said one thing and then did another. This confusing contradiction, acknowledged by the arbitrator, required clarification. Cf. Landmark Petroleum, 870 P.2d at 613 (holding that where arbitrator recognized own error, court could modify award to comport with arbitrator's intent). Thus, by recalculating the award using only proper labor costs based on the standard rates, the arbitrator certainly acted within section 13-22-211's circumstance of clarifying the award.