Court Opinion

ID: 9581716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:17:44.772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:12.250956
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, P. J.,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s implicit conclusion that it is an appropriate exercise of judicial review to intervene in the arbitration process and to reject the arbitrators’ interpretation of what matters the service contract made subject to their authority. I therefore respectfully dissent.
The parties contracted for arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism. The arbitrators decided issues that they understood to be within the contemplation of the contractual arbitration provision. Neither the trial court nor we should interfere. To whatever extent the case cited by the *752majority, Gamble et ux v. Sukut, 208 Or 480, 302 P2d 553 (1956), can be read to suggest otherwise, it does not survive Brewer v. Allstate Insurance Co., 248 Or 558, 436 P2d 547 (1968), where the court said:
“The arbitrator acts within the bounds of his authority not only when he decides a question of law correctly according to judicial standards, but also when he applies the law in a manner which a court would regard as erroneous. As we said in Mahaffy v. Gray, 242 Or 522, 525, 410 P2d 822, 823 (1966), ‘Neither a mistake of fact or law vitiates an award.’
“* * * [E]rrors of this kind are a part of the cost of employing the arbitration method of decision-making. The principal purpose of arbitration is to avoid litigation. If the arbitrator’s award is subject to extensive judicial control, this purpose is largely frustrated. Although there is some disagreement among the courts and legal scholars on the question of the extent to which arbitration awards should be subjected to judicial control, we favor the view that confines judicial review to the strictest possible limits.” 248 Or at 561-62. (Footnotes omitted.)
Unlike the arbitrator’s putative error in Brewer, the mistake that plaintiff and the majority ascribe to the arbitrators here relates to the interpretation of the provision of the contract which defines their authority. However, as we said in Beaverton Ed. Assn v. Wash. Co. Sch. Dist. No. 48, 76 Or App 129, 708 P2d 633 (1985), rev den 300 Or 545 (1986):
“ERB’s opinion on reconsideration states that, ‘if an arbitrator clearly exceeds his authority his “award would not be an award that the parties had agreed to make final and binding upon them” ’ (quoting from ERB’s decision in Willamina, 5 PECBR at 4099). It is true, as ERB suggests, that a party may be dissatisfied with an arbitrator’s erroneous decision that a contract makes a particular matter arbitrable that the party does not want to submit to arbitration; it is equally evident that a party would be unhappy with an arbitrator’s adverse misinterpretation of any other contractual provision that affects the party’s rights. However, in both instances, the party has agreed that the interpretation is for the arbitrator to make. We see no reason why the arbitrator’s decision should be subject to different standards of review in the two contexts.” 76 Or App at 139.
But see Peter Kiewit v. Port of Portland, 291 Or 49, 62, 628 P2d 720 (1981).
*753The Supreme Court said in Brewer that judicial intervention is appropriate when an arbitrator’s decision is “so grossly erroneous as to strike at the heart of the decision-making process.” 248 Or at 563. The decision here is not that erroneous. I agree with the majority’s interpretation of the arbitration provision, but I do not think it was a gross error to construe the provision in the way that the arbitrators did, i.e., that they had the authority to resolve “disagreementfs] on the amount of damages” and about liability issues on which claims for damages are based.