Court Opinion

ID: 9457940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:38:54.473029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:35.195889
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The award of an arbitrator is enforceable by a federal court only to the extent that he decides questions which the parties have submitted to him for arbitration. United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597, 598, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960). The parties are not bound by an award which exceeds the scope of the submission and, under 9 U.S.C. § 11(b) (1970), may secure an order modifying the award by striking references to issues the arbitrator had no authority to decide. Orion Shipping & Trading Co. v. Eastern States Petroleum Corp., 312 F.2d 299 (2d Cir. 1963); Kansas City Luggage & Novelty Workers Union, Local No. 66 v. Neevel Luggage Mfg. Co., 325 F.2d 992 (8th Cir. 1964); Truck Drivers & Helpers Union Local 784 v. Ulry-Talbert Co., 330 F.2d 562 (8th Cir. 1964). See also Carey v. General Electric Co., 315 F.2d 499, 508 (2d Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 908, 84 S.Ct. 1162, 12 L.Ed.2d 179 (1964); Communications Workers of America v. New York Telephone Co., 327 F.2d 94, 96 (2d Cir. 1964); Local Union No. 787, Int’l Union of Electrical Radio and Machine Workers v. Collins Radio Co., 317 F.2d 214, 216 (5th Cir. 1963).
In the present case the submission agreement is unambiguous. The parties had disagreed at the initial arbitration hearing as to the issue to be arbitrated: the validity of the master charter or only the Rolwi dispute. Thereafter, the parties agreed that the arbitrators should decide, in light of Federal’s actions, whether or not the master charter as a whole was valid. The individual disputes concerning the Rolwi and the Ionian Pioneer was not submitted to the arbitrators. The fact “that if the arbitrators held the master charter invalid, they would necessarily be ruling in favor of Kanematsu as to the individual charters” is irrelevant. The parties obviously foresaw that possibility when they agreed on the issue to be arbitrated. In view of the unequivocal language of the submission agreement, as well as the facts of the case, “it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that” the validity of the individual charters was submitted for arbitration. United Steelworkers of America v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U.S. 574, 582-583, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 409 (1960). The fact *391that the majority believes that the arbitrators’ result “was a practical, common-sense one” is immaterial to the limited question of whether the award is enforceable.
I would grant the petition for an order striking all reference in the award to the Rolwi and the Ionian Pioneer, because “the arbitrators . . . awarded upon a matter not submitted to them . . .,” 9 U.S.C. § 11(b) (1970). Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp. v. United Steelworkers of America, 269 F.2d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1959), rev’d on other grounds, 363 U.S. 593, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960); Moyer v. Van-Dye-Way Corp., 126 F.2d 339, 341 (3rd Cir. 1942); Hyman v. Pottberg’s Executors, 101 F.2d 262, 266 (2d Cir. 1939).