Opinion ID: 75971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the decision in riccard ii to confirm the nasd arbitration award

Text: 39 (ORDER 2) 40 After hearing testimony from twenty-two witnesses in fifty evidentiary sessions over the course of thirteen months, an NASD arbitration panel dismissed all of Riccard's claims with prejudice. Prudential filed a motion with the district court to confirm the arbitration decision, and Riccard filed a motion to vacate it. The district court granted Prudential's motion to confirm and denied Riccard's motion to vacate. Riccard contends that in doing so the court failed to properly consider evidence that required vacation of the decision. 41 The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 1, et seq., imposes a heavy presumption in favor of confirming arbitration awards. Gianelli Money Purchase Plan and Trust v. ADM Investor Serv., Inc., 146 F.3d 1309, 1312 (11th Cir. 1998). As a result, a court's confirmation of an arbitration award is usually routine or summary. Cullen v. Paine, Webber, Jackson, & Curtis, Inc., 863 F.2d 851, 854 (11th Cir.1989). Awards, however, may be vacated on four statutory grounds, set forth in the FAA, where: (1) the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means; (2) there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators; (3) the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing when there was good cause to postpone, or in refusing to hear pertinent and material evidence, or were guilty of any other misbehavior which may have prejudiced any party; or (4) the arbitrators exceeded their powers so much so that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made. 9 See 9 U.S.C. § 10(a). The burden is on the party requesting vacatur of the award to prove one of these four bases. See id. In reviewing the district court's confirmation of the panel's decision in favor of Prudential, we review questions of law de novo and findings of fact only for clear error. Brown v. ITT Consumer Financial Corp., 211 F.3d 1217, 1221 (11th Cir.2000). 42 In its order confirming the arbitration award, the district court noted that it had conducted an extensive review of the hundreds of pages of motions, memos, and exhibits filed on the issue of the panel's behavior during arbitration and determined that Riccard had a full and fair opportunity to present his case. More specifically, the court determined that the panel's failure to grant Riccard a continuance after he fired his attorney mid-hearing (forcing him to proceed pro se for three days) was not indicative of the panel's partiality or of their misconduct for failure to postpone the hearing for sufficient cause shown, because the court determined from the record that Riccard intentionally fired his attorney to gain a continuance he had been denied earlier. 43 Further, the district court determined that an answering machine message left by the chair of the arbitration panel on the hotel machine of a Prudential attorney immediately after she resigned from the panel (apparently in protest over the fact that the panel would not grant Riccard a continuance to obtain new counsel) did not demonstrate evident partiality on the part of any of the panel members who actually decided the case. 10 Finally, the court determined that Riccard was the beneficiary of any inconsistent behavior by the panel in applying discovery rules and other internal procedures, because the panel bent over backwards to accommodate his and his attorney's repeated failures to meet discovery deadlines. 44 We see no reason to disturb the district court's ruling on this matter, because its findings of fact are not clearly erroneous, nor are any of its legal conclusions wrong. We affirm the order granting the motion to confirm and denying the motion to vacate the arbitration award. 45