Penthouse 4C, LLC v. 100 Harborview Drive Council of Unit Owners (Cir. Ct. Balto. City)

Filed: June 5, 2012.

Opinion by Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon.

Held:   The Circuit Court for Baltimore City held that it had jurisdiction to confirm an arbitration award on a petition filed within 30 days after the arbitrators’ decision on a motion to modify the award, that the arbitrators did not exceed their jurisdiction in awarding the Plaintiff LLC the amount of costs of living and relocation expenses of the LLC’s sole member who was not a party to the arbitration, and that the award would not be vacated for manifest disregard of the law because the Defendant could not show that the arbitrators disregarded the law after understanding and correctly stating it. Finally, the Circuit Court refused to modify the specific performance part of the award based on Defendant’s evidence presented to the Court but not to the arbitrators.      

Facts: On March 9, 2010, the Plaintiff LLC, whose sole member was the primary resident of a condominium managed by the Defendant condominium council and directors, sued for specific performance and damages alleging that that the Defendant’s failure to perform required maintenance caused water exposure damage (mold) in the Plaintiff LLC’s condominium unit. The Plaintiff LLC’s sole member, an individual residing in the unit, was not individually named as a party to the suit.

The Circuit Court granted the Defendant’s motion to stay pending arbitration and after five days of hearings, on November 28, 2011 a majority of the three retired judges serving as arbitrators awarded the Plaintiff $1,252,487 in damages, including $433,722 for the sole member’s consequential costs, and ordered the Defendant to perform the required maintenance.

The Plaintiff filed a petition to confirm the award in the Circuit Court.   A day later the Defendant filed with the arbitrators a motion to modify the award as to what all agreed was an inadvertent mistake. On December 28, 2011 the majority panel issued its modification of the award, in part. On January 23, 2012 the Defendant filed in the Circuit Court a Petition to Vacate the Monetary Award and to Modify the Award’s order of specific performance.

Analysis:   The Circuit Court first addressed the Plaintiff’s claim that the Petition to Vacate was not timely filed. Relying on Mandl v. Bailey, 159 Md. App. 64 (2004),  the Circuit Court found that an arbitration award, although final and complete when issued, is rendered incomplete and no longer final when a motion is timely filed with the arbitrator to modify the award, therefore tolling the 30 day period in which a petition to vacate the award can be filed with the Court. In accordance with Mandl,  the Court found the Petition to Vacate was timely because filed within 30 days of delivery of the corrected award.

The Circuit Court next addressed whether the arbitrator panel exceeded its jurisdiction when making a $433,722 award to the Plaintiff LLC for consequential costs of the LLC’s sole member. The Court found that the Defendant participated in the arbitration without objection about jurisdiction or the appropriateness of a consequential costs award to the Plaintiff LLC’s sole member. The Circuit Court further found that the arbitration panel explicitly made the award to the Plaintiff LLC and not to the LLC’s sole member, therefore no jurisdictional issues were present.  

Next, the Circuit Court addressed the Defendant’s claim that the award for the consequential costs was “completely irrational” and a “manifest disregard of the law.” Although “manifest disregard of the law” is not stated as grounds to vacate an award in the Federal Arbitration Act or the Maryland Uniform Arbitration Act, the Court followed Sharp v. Downey, 197 Md. App. 123 cert. granted, 419 Md. 646 (2011) in applying the doctrine under principles of stare decisis. Reviewing authorities, the Circuit Court found that the “manifest disregard” standard requires some showing in the record, other than the obtained result, that the arbitrators knew the law and consciously disregarded it. The Circuit Court found that the Defendant never presented an issue to the arbitrators as to an award of the amount of the LLC’s sole member’s consequential costs and the arbitrators never provided any explanation for the award. In light of the Defendant’s silence, the award could not be “completely irrational” and the Defendant’s failure to refer the arbitrators to any law on consequential damages was fatal to the requirement of the “manifest disregard of the law” doctrine that the record show that the arbitrators were aware of the law and disregarded it.

Finally, the Defendant sought three modifications to the specific performance portion of the award: 1) incorporation of two Project Manuals that were not introduced into evidence, 2) allowing the Defendant to perform a peer-review of the Project Manuals, and 3) allowing value-engineering of the Project Manuals. Because the Project Manuals were not presented into evidence before the arbitrators, the Circuit Court could not conclude whether the proposed modifications would affect the award. Defendant also was silent during the arbitration hearing about peer-reviewing and value-engineering. Consequently, the Circuit Court denied the Defendant’s Petition to Vacate or Modify the Award and granted Plaintiff’s Petition to Confirm the Award.

The full opinion is available in PDF.