Court Opinion

ID: 9670863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:27:25.590477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.889010
License: Public Domain

Shepherd, P.J.
(concurring). I concur in the result for the reasons stated in the opinion of the Court. This case is an example of why persons involved in multiparty construction contracts should not consent to arbitration unless the arbitration agreement allows the arbitrators or a court to order consolidation. Most of the evidence in this *189case will have to be submitted twice before separate arbitrators who would be perfectly capable of segregating the issues if the facts could be presented at one hearing. Defendants have devoted much of their brief to the proposition that the contractor and the architect did not agree to have any dispute which might exist between them submitted to arbitration. This is correct and even in a consolidated arbitration the arbitrators would not be able to dispose of any such issues. The arbitrators would only be ablé to rule on the liability of the contractor and the architect to the plaintiffs. The annotation at 64 ALR3d 528 states at 531:
"* * * [i]n one cage -n the appellate court refused to order multiparty arbitration involving a building owner, a contractor, and an architect, in the absence of an agreement for multiparty arbitration, the court emphasized that it did not intend to deny the propriety of multiparty arbitration by consent, and added that if multiparty arbitration is to become a standard procedure, arbitration clauses and the rules and procedures of the American Arbitration Association and other concerned organizations should be redrawn to provide for it.”
As a result of the courts’ lack of authority to order consolidation, these disputes will now be submitted to two separate hearings, each of which could become protracted over a long period, and each of which will involve essentially the same evidence. If these disputes had been the subject of litigation, a court would have had the discretion to order consolidation for judicial economy. Instead, there will be no economy of any kind and the whole purpose of arbitration has been defeated. Taxpayer funds will be unnecessarily expended in the hearing of two matters before arbitrators and for this reason we may very well find municipalities refusing to enter into arbitration agreements unless consolidation is agreed to in the contract.