Court Opinion

ID: 9635516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:52:53.464868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:28.861545
License: Public Domain

*193ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority announces a rule prohibiting a party who has agreed to submit disputes to “competent and disinterested” arbitrators from choosing as that party’s arbitrator any attorney who has previously performed legal services for that party. This rule departs from the important doctrine limiting judicial intrusion into the arbitration process, thus imposing an unnecessary and unwise burden on the judicial system. I dissent.
Arbitration, designed to allow parties to submit their disputes to a non-judicial tribunal, is favored because it “provide[s] an expeditious and inexpensive method of resolving disputes with the further winning attribute of helping to ease congested court calendars.” Allstate Insurance Co. v. Fioravanti, 451 Pa. 108, 116, 299 A.2d 585, 589 (1973). Accord, Flightways Corp. v. Keystone Helicopter Corp., 459 Pa. 660, 331 A.2d 184 (1975); Mendelson v. Shrager, 432 Pa. 383, 248 A.2d 234 (1968).
To preserve the utility of arbitration as a meaningful substitute for court litigation, judicial review of arbitration proceedings is circumscribed. Allstate Insurance Co. v. Fioravanti, supra. A party challenging an award
“must show by clear, precise, and undubitable evidence that he was denied a hearing, or that there was fraud, misconduct, corruption, or some other irregularity of this nature on the part of the arbitrator which caused him to render an unjust, inequitable, or unconscionable award, the arbitrator being the final judge of both law and fact, his award not being subject to disturbance for a mistake of either.”
Id. 451 Pa. at 114, 299 A.2d at 588.
The majority intervenes in this arbitration proceeding. It does so not in the face of “clear, precise, and undubitable evidence” of fraud or other irregularities committed by appellant’s arbitrator, but rather on the theory that the arbitrator’s prior representation of appellant renders the *194arbitrator conclusively incapable of fulfilling the “disinterested” arbitrator requirement set forth in the arbitration clause of the agreement.
In reaching its conclusion, the majority interprets the agreement of the parties, and thus itself assumes the role of arbitrator. The meaning of “disinterested,” like any other provision of the arbitration clause, is a question which should be left to the arbitrators. The majority invites parties to arbitration to submit to courts their agreements to arbitrate for judicial refinement of the phrase “disinterested;” moreover, the majority also invites parties to seek judicial interpretation of “competent,” “qualified,” and other provisions of a typical arbitration agreement. The majority undermines arbitration when it usurps the arbitrator’s function and encourages court litigation over interpretation of arbitration agreements.
Even more objectionable is the majority’s conclusion that appellee has been denied a fair hearing. This agreement, like many others, provides that each party shall name one arbitrator, and that the two named arbitrators shall select a third. It is not unreasonable to expect a party to choose an individual with whom he is familiar and whose expertise, reliability, and sense of judgment he trusts.
The majority unjustifiably eliminates from the list of possible arbitrators any attorney who has previously represented a party even though that attorney might possess the attributes that render him desirable as an arbitrator. The opportunity to select such an individual contributes to the attractiveness of arbitration and should be encouraged.
The majority’s restrictive rule will work an even greater hardship if applied not to a party such as appellant, an insurance carrier, but to appellee, an individual of presumably lesser resources. The rule permits not only an individual such as appellee to challenge, based on provisions of the agreement, the “disinterestedness,” “competency,” and other qualifications of the insurance carrier’s arbitrator, but also *195allows the carrier, in turn, to mount the same attacks, based on the same provisions of the agreement, on the qualifications of the individual’s arbitrator. Denied the right to appoint as arbitrator an attorney with whom that party is familiar, that party would have to seek out another individual about whom that party may know nothing. Because parties such as insurance companies can much more easily find suitable representatives, individual parties are put at a disadvantage in selecting an arbitrator. Permitting such unwarranted attacks on qualifications invites unnecessary increase in the judicial burden.
Unlike here, if the party chooses an attorney currently retained by the party, a different conclusion might be reached. In those circumstances, the court might disqualify the attorney in the present employment of the party, not on the basis of any provision of the arbitration agreement, but because the selection may conflict with common law standards of fairness in arbitration. The potential for gain to the currently retained attorney may give rise to an inference that the attorney so employed might be incapable of rendering a fair judgment.
Absent fraud or other grounds for disqualification at common law, this Court should refrain from interfering with the arbitration process. To so interfere — as the majority does here — is to impose an unnecessary and unwise additional burden on an already overburdened judicial system.
I would affirm the award of the arbitrators.
NIX, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.