Court Opinion

ID: 9746040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:52:48.044226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:08.299502
License: Public Domain

KLEIN, P. J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would reverse the judgment confirming the arbitration award with directions to grant Taheri Law Group, A.P.C.’s petition to vacate the award.
In an effort to uphold the perceived sanctity of arbitration awards, the majority opinion holds that irrespective of the failure of Alexander Sorokurs to file a timely response to Taheri’s petition to vacate the arbitration award, “the trial court had the authority and the obligation to determine whether the factual allegations of the petition to vacate established a legal basis to vacate an award under [Code of Civil Procedure] section 1286.2.” (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 964—965, italics added.)1
In so holding, the majority opinion imposes a sua sponte duty on overburdened trial courts to scrutinize the merits of a petition to vacate an arbitration award, in the event that a party has failed to oppose a petition to vacate. By requiring the trial court to act as backup counsel for the errant opposing party, the majority’s approach runs counter to our adversarial system of litigation, which assigns respective roles to the moving party, the opposing party and the trial court. Here, the majority opinion reflects that the majority conducted an independent review of Taheri’s 150-page petition to vacate and supporting exhibits, in order to make its own determination as to whether the allegations of the unopposed petition to vacate had a sufficient “factual basis” for the claims presented.2
*966In addition to upending the adversarial system, the majority’s approach is contrary to the plain language of the statutory scheme. Under the legislation pertaining to arbitration (§ 1280 et seq.), the legal consequence of an unopposed petition to vacate an arbitration award is that the allegations of the petition to vacate are deemed admitted. Section 1290 provides in relevant part: “The allegations of a petition are deemed to be admitted by a respondent duly served therewith unless a response is duly served and filed.” (Italics added.)
Section 1290.6 specifies the time for filing and serving a response to a petition. It provides in relevant part: “A response shall be served and filed within 10 days after service of the petition .... The time provided in this section for serving and filing a response may be extended by an agreement in writing between the parties to the court proceeding or, for good cause, by order of the court.” (Italics added.)
Here, there was no written agreement between Taheri and Sorokurs extending the 10-day period for Sorokurs to file and serve a response to Taheri’s petition to vacate the award.
Further, there was no court order extending the 10-day period for good cause. To the contrary, the trial court denied Sorokurs’s motion under section 473 to extend the time for responding to Taheri’s petition to vacate the award.
The effect of Sorokurs’s failure to timely serve and file opposition to Taheri’s petition to vacate the award is that the allegations of the petition to vacate were deemed admitted. (§ 1290.)
Evans Products Co. v. Millmen’s Union No. 550 (1984) 159 Cal.App.3d 815 [205 Cal.Rptr. 731] (Evans) is on point. There, a union won an arbitration award against an employer. On May 22, 1978, the employer filed a timely petition to vacate the award. The union’s response and request to confirm the award were untimely filed on June 19, 1978. (Id. at p. 819.) The trial court granted the employer’s petition to vacate the award. The reviewing court affirmed, stating, “Code of Civil Procedure section 1290.6 provides so far as pertinent that a response shall be served and filed within 10 days after service of the petition. Since the Union’s response was not duly served and filed, the court below properly concluded that the allegations of [the employer’s] petition were deemed to be admitted by the Union. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1290; De Mello v. Souza (1973) 36 Cal.App.3d 79, 83 [111 Cal.Rptr. 274].)” (Evans, supra, at p. 819, italics added.)
*967Also pertinent here is Eternity Investments, Inc. v. Brown (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 739 [60 Cal.Rptr.3d 134] (Eternity). There, an arbitrator issued an award in favor of the plaintiff. The defendants did not file a petition or response in the trial court to correct or vacate the award within the 100-day period. (See §§ 1285-1286.8, 1288.) Three weeks after the 100-day period expired, the plaintiff filed a timely petition to confirm the award.3 In their response thereto, the defendants challenged the award as invalid. The trial court entered judgment confirming the award. (Eternity, supra, at p. 742.)
The reviewing court affirmed, concluding “that, because defendants did not bring a timely petition or response to correct or vacate the award, the trial court had no choice but to disregard defendants’ challenge and ‘confirm the award as made.’ (§ 1286.)” (Eternity, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th at p. 742.)
Here, because Sorokurs did not file a timely response to Taheri’s petition to vacate the award, the allegations of Taheri’s petition to vacate the award “are deemed to be admitted . . . .” (§ 1290.) Taheri’s petition to vacate the arbitration award alleged, inter alia, the arbitrator exceeded his powers by rendering a decision on issues which were not put before him. (§ 1286.2, subd. (a)(4).) The effect of Sorokurs’s silence in the face of Taheri’s petition to vacate is that said allegation by Taheri, albeit conclusionary, is deemed to be admitted. Therefore, Taheri was entitled to a grant of the petition to vacate the award.
The majority opinion faults Taheri’s petition to vacate for failure to set forth sufficient ‘factual allegations.” However, section 1290 simply states “[t]he allegations of a petition are deemed to be admitted” if no response is duly served and filed. (Italics added.) To justify its heightened scrutiny of the petition to vacate, the majority herein has inserted the word “factual” into section 1290, to hold that “only factual allegations ... are deemed admitted by a failure to timely respond . . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 962, italics added.)
However, as noted in 4 Witkin, California Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Pleading, section 378, page 514, “the distinction between ultimate facts, conclusions of law, and evidentiary matter is one of degree only, and the decisions often appear to be haphazard and inconsistent. (See Estate of Bixler (1924) 194 [Cal.] 585, 589 [229 P. 704] [‘The lines of demarkation between conclusions of fact, conclusions of law, and an admixture of the two, are not clearly defined. The allegation of an ultimate fact as distinguished from an evidentiary fact usually, if not always, involves one or more conclusions’] . . . .)”
*968In sum, Taheri’s unopposed allegations with respect to the grounds for vacating the award, which allegations are deemed admitted (§ 1290), were sufficient to entitle Taheri to a grant of the petition to vacate the award.
Accordingly, it is unnecessary to reach Taheri’s remaining contentions on appeal.

 All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.

 The majority opinion also reflects the majority went beyond scrutinizing the allegations to engage in a weighing of the evidence to support Taheri’s allegations. For example, with respect to the fifth ground pled by Taheri, i.e., that it was substantially prejudiced by the arbitrator’s refusal to hear evidence material to the controversy, the majority opinion concludes, “that Taheri was disappointed with [the] award is not sufficient to prove substantial prejudice.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 964, italics added.)

 The time for filing a petition to confirm an award is not later than four years from the date of service of the award on the petitioner. (§ 1288.)