Court Opinion

ID: 9762281
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:18:52.901947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:32.768313
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion.
I think we are rather breathing too heavy to lift a feather. This case should be confined to its own procedural anomaly.
A controversy arose, it was submitted to arbitration. The arbitrator gave judgment, but misapprehending his function, refused to fashion a remedy. To do one and not the other, creates a vacuum soon filled with original acrimonies. An arbitrator, invested with the authorities delineated in the majority opinion, is to judge and resolve the controversy. To leave the parties to fashion their own remedy is to *70abdicate the function. In this case, the arbitrator gave judgment and suggested the parties negotiate a remedy. They soon floundered. The party with the judgment but no remedy, requested arbitration to enforce the judgment of the first arbitrator. A new arbitrator was appointed and gave a remedy. This is obviously the simple solution. We are entwined in questions as to whether the parties should have appealed or whether an arbitrator or the parties may “bifurcate” issues. Neither question seems relevant. Although the majority opinion permits the bifurcation of issues under the narrow factual situation presented by this case, it cannot be read generally as warrant for the bifurcation of issues, involving separate hearings or each issue isolated. If such splitting of the issues was generally allowed, the arbitration process would lose the name of action. The majority opinion recognizes the large ambit of authority in an arbitrator, authority sufficient to resolve all issues under a single submission. To suggest or encourage the proliferation of hearings or appeals, is to defeat the swift, inexpensive solution of controversy, which is the purpose of arbitration.