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Court of Appeal:
Judgment Founded on Arbitration Award Can’t Be Assailed Based on Judge’s Discovery Order
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of the First District Court of Appeal has held that a judgment confirming an arbitration award cannot be assailed on appeal based on a judge’s alleged error in ruling on a discovery motion.
The decision came in the case of a woman, allegedly the victim in a hit-and-run accident, who sued her insurer under the uninsured motorist provision of her policy. Defendant State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company was skeptical as to whether an impact had actually occurred, and served a set of requests for admission, to which plaintiff Cora Robinson did not respond.
Acting pursuant to Insurance Code §11580.2(f), under which the judge, not the arbitrator, decides discovery motions in uninsured motorist cases, Solano Superior Court Judge Michael Mattice made an order deeming the matters admitted. Robinson moved for relief, which Mattice denied; the judge sent the matter to arbitration; based on the admissions; the arbitrator found in favor of State Farm; Mattice ordered entry of judgment for State Farm.
Robinson appealed based on the discovery order.
“The question of first impression here is whether trial court discovery orders in these proceedings are reviewable on appeal from a judgment confirming the arbitration award,” Presiding Justice Jim Humes said in an opinion filed Monday. “We hold that they are not.”
CCP §1286.2
Code of Civil Procedure §1286.2 sets forth the exclusive bases upon which an appellate court may reverse a judgment confirming an arbitration award, Humes wrote, “and a trial court error in issuing a discovery ruling is not among them.”
Robinson should have sought a writ, the jurist said. Responding to the Robinson’s contention that a writ petition challenging a discovery ruling is nearly always doomed, Humes wrote:
“Although we recognize that writ review of discovery orders in civil actions is uncommon and generally disfavored…, we cannot agree that it is as improbable as Robinson supposes, especially in circumstances such as were present here. To begin with, since section 1286.2 does not authorize post-judgment review of trial courts’ discovery rulings in uninsured-motorist proceedings, appellate courts may be more likely to grant timely writ review of these rulings because of the inadequacy of the legal remedy….And they may be even more likely to grant writ review when, as here, the discovery ruling deemed admitted requests for admissions.”
Writ Petition
Robinson asked that, if the court won’t reverse based on the discovery order, it treat the appeal as a petition for a writ of mandate.
“If Robinson had appealed from the discovery order before judgment was entered, we could have exercised our discretion and treated the appeal as a petition for a writ of mandate, and we could have reviewed the trial court’s alleged errors in issuing the discovery orders,” Humes said. “But since Robinson’s appeal was from the judgment confirming the arbitration award, our review of the discovery orders can have no consequence because we cannot vacate the judgment as no ground for doing so has been established under section 1286.2.”
The appellant came up with the argument that under §1286.2(a)(4), an arbitration award may be rejected where “[t]he arbitrators exceeded their powers and the award cannot be corrected without affecting the merits of the decision upon the controversy submitted,” and that the arbitrator’s powers were exceeded by relying on the deemed admissions.
Justice’s Response
Humes was unpersuaded, saying:
“Even if the trial court may have exceeded its powers by violating a policy or statute in issuing the discovery orders—an issue we do not reach because Robinson did not properly seek review of the court’s order—Robinson has not shown that the arbitrator exceeded his or her powers by accepting those orders.
“Furthermore, allowing judicial review of a judgment confirming an arbitration award on the theory that the arbitrator accepted a trial court’s erroneous discovery ruling would conflict with the well-established principle that, with ‘narrow exceptions,’ an arbitrator’s decision is not reviewable for errors of fact or law.”
The case is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Robinson, 2022 S.O.S. 1148.
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