Court Opinion

ID: 9479926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:33:03.341965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:22.463396
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the decision and analysis of the majority opinion. I write only to emphasize that this case and many others reach our docket solely because arbitrators fail to state the reasons for their awards and decisions. While arbitrators are not obliged to the courts to give their reasons for an award, United Steelworkers of America v. Enterprise Wheel and Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593, 598, 80 S.Ct. 1358, 1361, 4 L.Ed.2d 1424 (1960), the absence of any evidence of an arbitrator’s decision process makes this Court’s review of an arbitration award something of a judicial snipe hunt with counsel for the parties arguing about contract law analysis that may or may not have been manifestly disregarded by the arbitrator.
The record in this case narrowly indicates that the arbitrator did not engage in a manifest disregard of the law. Future arbitration appeals completely lacking in some statement of the arbitrator’s reasons for making an award may not have the luxury of a sufficient record which indicates that the award was not based on a manifest disregard of the lav/. In such situations, this Court should decline the parties’ invitation to hunt for snipe and reverse the arbitration award as a manifest disregard of the law. While this Court has a limited role in the review of arbitration awards, we are not a rubber stamp for unexplained and unsupported decisions rendered by arbitrators.