Court Opinion

ID: 9489200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:08:53.564745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:23.701914
License: Public Domain

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the panel’s opinion. I do not think an arbitrator has a duty — at least absent governing rules such as the NASD provision applied in Schmitz — to search his former law firm’s client list to determine whether one of the parties before him had been a client of his former law firm. We should bear in mind that arbitrators, unlike judges, are chosen by the parties, and any extensive duty to investigate the client list of former law firms, or even perhaps a very large present law firm, will just increase the costs. Of course, the parties can request such a search, but that is a different matter. I do not think, however, that the absence of any particular duty can be explained — as does the Fourth Circuit in Peoples Security — in terms of the burden of proof on the party seeking to overturn the award. Obviously, if a duty to investigate existed, the burden of proof would have been met by establishing that the arbitrator failed to perform it.