New York Public Personnel Law: Grounds for vacating an arbitration award

June 01, 2015

Grounds for vacating an arbitration award

Grounds for vacating an arbitration award

2015 NY Slip Op 04486, Appellate Division, Second Department

In this action to confirm an arbitration award Supreme Court granted the petition and denied the disappointed party’s [Lieberman] application to vacate the arbitration award.

In the appeal that followed challenging the Supreme Court’s ruling the Appellate Division sustained, in relevant part, the confirmation of the arbitration award, explaining "Even where the arbitrator makes a mistake of fact or law, [an arbitration] award is not subject to vacatur unless the court concludes that it is totally irrational or violative of a strong public policy and thus in excess of the arbitrator's powers."

Here, said the court, Lieberman failed to demonstrate that the arbitration panel exceeded its power in making the award.

Citing Town of Haverstraw v Rockland County Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn., 65 NY2d 677, the Appellate Division said "An arbitrator may do justice as he [or she] sees it, applying his [or her] own sense of law and equity to the facts as he [or she] finds them to be."

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2015/2015_04486.htm

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