Court Opinion

ID: 9785816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:28:05.588373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:33.815319
License: Public Domain

MORENO, J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment. I agree with Justice Chin that the issue here is less one of waiver than of the relationship between the mandatory fee arbitration act, Business and Professions Code section 6200 et seq. (MFAA), and the California Arbitration Act (CAA). (Code Civ. Proc., § 1280 et seq.) I further agree with Justice Chin that there is no incompatibility between the two arbitration acts, at least not in this case. But as the majority correctly points out, plaintiff and defendant entered into the arbitration agreement in 1994, and we have no occasion to consider the meaning of the 1996 amendments to the MFAA. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 990, fn. 8, citing Stats. 1996, ch. 1104, §§ 12-18.) One of those amendments changed Business and Professions Code section 6204, subdivision (a), to provide that an MFAA arbitration can only be made legally binding “after the dispute over fees, costs, or both, has arisen.” (Stats. 1996, ch. 1104, § 16.) At least one court has held that this amendment, among other things, evinces a legislative intent to preclude binding predispute agreements to arbitrate legal fees under the CAA. (Alternative Systems, Inc. v. Carey (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 1034, 1042-1044 [79 Cal.Rptr.2d 567].)
Unlike Justice Chin, I express no opinion about whether Alternative Systems was correctly decided vis-á-vis post-1996 arbitration agreements, *994which are not at issue in this case. I agree with the majority that a client may waive the right to challenge a CAA arbitration if he or she declines to undergo an MFAA arbitration but instead elects, after being properly notified of his or her MFAA rights, to participate in a CAA arbitration. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 988.) But I do not understand the majority opinion to be deciding whether post-1996 predispute CAA agreements to arbitrate legal fees may be enforced, consistent with the MFAA, without the client’s consent. I also express no opinion about whether a state statute that precludes binding predispute arbitration agreements of legal fees would be preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 990, fn. 8.)