Court Opinion

ID: 9795095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:19:58.535357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:23:57.657612
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
It is well settled that an arbitrator “does not sit to dispense his own brand of industrial justice.” Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 597 (1960). We have also said fairly definitively, albeit in dicta, that a court should remedy an arbitrator’s “procedural aberrations” by vacating the award and remanding for further proceedings. Paperworkers v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S. 29,40-41, n. 10 (1987). Our cases, however, do not provide significant guidance as to what standards a federal court should use in assessing whether an arbitrator’s behavior is so untethered to either the agreement of the parties or the factual record so as to constitute an attempt to “dispense his own brand of industrial justice.” Nor, more importantly, do they tell us how, having made such a finding, courts should deal with “the extraordinary circumstance in which the arbitrator’s own rulings make clear that, more than being simply erroneous, his finding is completely inexplicable and borders on the irrational.” Garvey v. Roberts, 203 F. 3d 580, 590 (GA9 2000) (case below). Because our ease law is not sufficiently clear to allow me to conclude that the case below was wrongly decided — let alone to conclude that the decision was so wrong as to require the extraordinary remedy of a sum*513mary reversal — I dissent from the Court’s disposition of this petition.
Without the benefit of briefing or argument, today the Court resolves two difficult questions. First, it decides that even if the Court of Appeals’ appraisal of the merits is correct — that is to say, even if the arbitrator did dispense his own brand of justice untethered to the agreement of the parties, and even if the correct disposition of the matter is perfectly clear — the only course open to a reviewing court is to remand the matter for another arbitration. That conclusion is not compelled by any of our cases, nor by any analysis offered by the Court. As the issue is subject to serious arguments on both sides, the Court should have set this case for argument if it wanted to answer this remedial question.
Second, without reviewing the record or soliciting briefing, the Court concludes that, in any event, “no serious error on the arbitrator’s part is apparent in this case.” Ante, at 511, n. 2. At this stage in the proceedings, I simply cannot endorse that conclusion. After examining the record, obtaining briefing, and hearing oral argument, the Court of Appeals offered a reasoned explanation of its conclusion. See 208 F. 3d, at 589-592; see also id., at 593-594 (Hawkins, J., concurring). Whether or not I would ultimately agree with the Ninth Circuit’s analysis, I find the Court’s willingness to reverse a faetbound determination of the Court of Appeals without engaging that court’s reasoning a troubling departure from our normal practice.*
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

The Court’s opinion is somewhat ambiguous as to its reasons for overturning the portion of the Court of Appeals’ decision setting aside the arbitration. It is unclear whether the majority is saying that a court may never set aside an arbitration because of a factual error, no matter how perverse, or whether the Court merely holds that the error in this case was not sufficiently severe to allow a court to take that step. If it is the latter, the Court offers no explanation of what standards it is using or of its reasons for reaching that conclusion.