Court Opinion

ID: 9793451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:48:10.114715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:08.019761
License: Public Domain

NOYES, Judge,
dissenting.
¶ 25 The trial court did what it was supposed to do when notified that the case had been in arbitration for over eighteen months but had not yet gone to a hearing: The court asked the parties to show good cause for any more delay. When the parties failed to show good cause, the court denied their motion. The parties still had time to have an arbitration hearing and to then file a timely motion to set and certificate of readiness. But rather than try to comply with the court’s order, the lawyers tried to evade it: They went to the arbitrator and got him to sign the following order: “IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Court’s Notice of Placement on Inactive Calendar dated September 25, 1997, setting this matter for dismissal on November 22, 1997, be extended until April 15, 1998, to allow the parties to complete the arbitration process.”
¶ 26 When the court found out that it had been purportedly overruled by the arbitrator, it issued a minute entry that was well-reasoned and remarkably restrained:
The arbitrator had no inherent authority to continue matters on the Court’s administrative calendar. Furthermore, it was inappropriate for Plaintiffs counsel to submit a stipulation and order to continue this case on the inactive calendar to the arbitrator, knowing that this Court had previously denied a motion to continue on the *453inactive calendar (September 29, 1997), and knowing that a motion to continue dated October 20,1997 was pending before this Court. Therefore, IT IS ORDERED denying Plaintiffs Motion for Reinstatement.
¶27 The majority does not criticize the trial court’s findings; rather, it concludes that the trial court had no authority to act because Uniform Rule V “does not apply to matters in arbitration.” That proposition will startle, the authors of the arbitration rules. The self-evident expectation of the rule-makers is that a ease will be arbitrated within the Uniform Rule V framework. In other words, the Uniform Rule V clock is ticking while the case is in arbitration.
¶ 28 Uniform Rule V provides that all civil cases in which a motion to set and certifícate of readiness has not been filed “within nine months after the commencement thereof’ shall be placed on the inactive calendar for dismissal. Arbitration Rule 4 provides a faster track: The hearing is to commence no more than four months (120 days) after appointment of the arbitrator. Arbitration Rule 5 gives the arbitrator 10 days to file a decision. Arbitration Rule 7 gives a party 20 days to appeal, and it provides that the notice of appeal serves as the motion to set and certificate of readiness required by Uniform Rule V.
¶ 29 Arbitration Rule 5(b) leaves no doubt that the trial court is ultimately responsible for the progress of a case in arbitration. It provides that, if the arbitrator has not filed an award within 120 days of his appointment, the court clerk or administrator “shall refer the case to the judge to whom the case has been assigned for appropriate action.” That is what eventually happened here. About 570 days after the arbitrator was appointed, this inactive case got referred to the judge, who took appropriate action. When the lawyers did not respond with appropriate action, the judge properly dismissed the case for lack of prosecution.
¶ 30 The judgment of dismissal should be affirmed.