Court Opinion

ID: 9770204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:54:16.721532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:15.755081
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
*704The standard for vacating the arbitration award (as both parties agreed) is “gross mistake of law or fact proving undue partiality.” At oral argument Kodak Mining conceded there was no single error of law or fact qualifying under this standard and that he was relying instead on the cumulative effect of a number of alleged errors.
In the preliminary round, Kodak Mining Company v. Carrs Fork Corp., Ky., 669 S.W.2d 917 (1984), Kodak Mining insisted on its right to arbitrate and got it; it should now be prepared to accept the results absent proof of some illegality amounting to a fraud. Its various arguments claiming gross mistake of law are weak because, in each instance, there are specific terms in the contract/lease which arguably distinguish the present case from the authorities cited. This should be the end of the inquiry.
We should keep a clear line of demarcation between the standard for reviewing the decision of a lower court and an agreed arbitration. By failing to abide by the difference, the Majority Opinion strikes at the heart of the process of arbitration.
LAMBERT, J., joins this dissent.