Court Opinion

ID: 9734084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:24:57.399995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:45.563091
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Spaeth, J.:
I agree with the conclusion of the lead opinion, that appellant is precluded by the “Submission to Arbitration”, ante at 443, from raising on appeal any alleged errors of law or fact. However, I do not agree that this is so because under the submission the principles of common law arbitration apply to this case. Rather, I would hold that under the submission the provisions of the Act of June 16, 1836, P.L. 715, 5 P.S. §§1-8, apply. I would therefore allow appellant to raise any issues it would be allowed to raise under that Act, except to the extent that it is precluded from doing so by the wording of the submission.
Section 4 of the Act of 1836, supra, sets forth the bases on which exceptions may be taken: “The party against whom an award shall be made, as aforesaid, may except thereto, within such time as the court, by their rules, shall direct, for either of the following causes, and for no other, viz.: I. That the arbitrators or umpire misbehaved themselves in the case, or II. That they commit*447ted a plain mistake in matter of fact, or matter of law, or III. That the award was procured by corruption or other undue means.” Id., 5 P.S. §4. The submission in the present case, by providing that the arbitrator “shall be the final judge of law and fact,” precludes appellant from bringing any exceptions under subsection II. However, it does not preclude appellant from bringing exceptions under subsections I and III; and although these exceptions are no broader than the exceptions that could be brought under common law, that is not the same as saying that the arbitration was a common law arbitration rather than a statutory one.
In none of the cases cited either in the lead opinion or by appellant was an arbitration statute mentioned in the submission itself. The closest case is J. A. Robbins Co., Inc. v. Airportels, Inc., 418 Pa. 257, 210 A.2d 896 (1965). There the arbitration clause in a contract made reference only to “prevailing arbitration law.” At the beginning of the arbitration hearing, one party announced that it read this clause to refer to the Uniform Arbitration Act, Act of April 25, 1927, P.L. 381, No. 248, 5 P.S. §§161-181. The other party disagreed, and the hearing continued without resolution of this question. On appeal, our Supreme Court held that in the absence of any reference to a specific statute, an agreement providing for arbitration under “prevailing arbitration law” meant common law arbitration. Likewise, in Freeman v. Ajax Foundry Products, Inc., 898 Pa. 457, 159 A.2d 708 (1960) (per curiam affirmance of opinion reported at 20 Pa. D & C 2d 128 (1959)), the agreement that the Uniform Arbitration Act, supra, should be assumed to be the intended law in any contract written after 1927 was explicitly rejected. Again it was held that a reference to arbitration law, without any reference to a specific statute, would be construed as providing for common law arbitration.
*448The submission in this case makes specific reference to the Arbitration Act of 1836, supra. I read this as a statement by both parties that they intended that the law and procedures set forth in that Act should govern; I do not see how else it can be read. The lead opinion, by holding that common law principles apply, needlessly nullifies this statement of intent in order to give meaning to the provision that the arbitrator “shall be the final judge of law and fact.” I would give meaning to that provision and still effectuate the parties’ intent by holding that the Arbitration Act of 1836 does apply, but that appellant is precluded from raising any issue under §4 (II) of that Act.
The procedures under both the Arbitration Act of 1836 and the Uniform Arbitration Act of 1927, supra, are different from the procedures under common law arbitration. I would not deprive the parties of the benefits of the procedures of one of the acts when they clearly intended that the act apply, and when it is sufficient to preclude them from invoking only one subsection of the act. It happens in the present case that I agree with the conclusion reached by the lead opinion, but that is only because the issue that appellant seeks to raise is under §4 (II) of the Arbitration Act of 1836, and the parties by their submission have agreed that that may not be done. In another case, however, it may appear that the parties have specified the Uniform Arbitration Act of 1927, also providing, as here, that the arbitrator is to be the final judge of law and fact. In such a case, under the lead opinion the arbitration would be a common law arbitration. That result, however, would defeat the parties’ intent and (unlike the result here) would be a matter of practical consequence. Here, by agreeing that no exceptions could be brought under §4 (II) of the Arbitration Act of 1836, the parties to all practical effect agreed to a common law arbitration, since the exceptions that could be brought under §4 (I) and §4 (III) are no broader than *449the exceptions that could be brought under common law. In the case I have supposed, however, that would not be so. The Uniform Arbitration Act of 1927 provides protections far broader that at common law, and an agreement that the arbitrator should be the final judge of law and fact would not so reduce the scope of those provisions as to make the ensuing arbitration equivalent to one at common law.
I would therefore affirm the order of the court below on the basis that although the arbitration was under the Arbitration Act of 1836, supra, appellant agreed by the submission that it could not raise the issue it now seeks to raise.
Jacobs and Hoffman, JJ., join in this opinion.