Court Opinion

ID: 9746032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:52:24.414831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:08.089839
License: Public Domain

ROTHS CHILD, J., Dissenting.
The majority concludes that under Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 83 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 745, 6 P.3d 669] (Armendariz), plaintiffs cannot be required to bear any type of expense in arbitration that would not have been imposed if their hate crimes claim had been heard in a court. Nothing in the record before us, however, indicates that plaintiffs properly preserved that issue by raising it before the arbitrator. I would therefore affirm on that basis, without reaching the merits.
“Failure to raise [a claim of illegality] before the arbitrator . . . waives the claim for any future judicial review.” (Moncharsh v. Hetty & Blase (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1, 31 [10 Cal.Rptr.2d 183, 832 P.2d 899] (Moncharsh).) As the Supreme Court has explained, any other rule would be “inconsistent with the basic purpose of private arbitration, which is to finally decide a dispute between the parties. Moreover, we cannot permit a party to sit on his rights, content in the knowledge that should he suffer an adverse decision, he could then raise the illegality issue in a motion to vacate the arbitrator’s award. A contrary rule would condone a level of ‘procedural gamesmanship’ that we have condemned as ‘undermining the advantages of arbitration.’ [Citations.] Such a waste of arbitral and judicial time and resources should not be permitted.” (Id. at p. 30.)
*870Application of the Moncharsh waiver rule here is not inequitable. Plaintiffs’ Armendariz argument is based entirely on their hate crimes claim. That claim was so patently meritless that the arbitrator rejected it at the pleading stage on the basis of a straightforwardly applicable federal statutory immunity. Plaintiffs should not be permitted to prolong these proceedings by using their frivolous hate crimes claim as a means to avoid liability for attorney fees and costs, even in part.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.