Court Opinion

ID: 9568159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:01:06.330023+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:24.898113
License: Public Domain

Grosse, J.
(concurring) — I agree that we should affirm the trial court’s confirmation of the arbitration award, but write separately to emphasize what I believe to be the correct analysis in these circumstances.
First, perjury in the course of an arbitration proceeding can and should constitute fraud as that concept is used in the applicable statutes. Second, and more important to the quandary posed by this case, the process by which to raise a challenge to an arbitration is a fact specific inquiry for the superior court, an inquiry that is not restricted by the doctrine that subsequent judicial review of an arbitration award cannot go behind the face of the award. Rather, it is incumbent on the party challenging the award to produce a prima facie case establishing that perjury occurred, and that the perjury materially affected the outcome of the proceeding.
Neither circumstance was established here. Certainly, who said what and when with regard to a comparable sale is disputed, but that dispute is no more than the proverbial swearing contest, in contrast to perjury. Moreover, the record reveals this comparable sale to have been no moré than “some” of the substantial evaluation evidence presented to *496the arbiters. The appellants did not establish a prima facie case requiring further factual inquiry by the trial court. Summary judgment was appropriate.
As a final note, I do not disagree that CR 60(b) provides a good analogous analytical framework for the determination of whether fraud materially affected the outcome. However, Peoples State Bank v. Hickey, 55 Wn. App. 367, 777 P.2d 1056 (1989), was wrongly decided, even while reciting the correct principle, and I would not give the case the further dignity of relying on it here.