ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the arbitration award by a Rabbinical Court in this divorce proceeding should not have been vacated. The fact that the Equitable Distribution Law was not followed did not warrant vacation of the award because parties can elect to deviate from the Domestic Relations Law (no violation of public policy). The Second Department further held that unconscionability is not a statutory ground for reviewing or setting aside an arbitration award:
Judicial review of an arbitration award is extremely limited (see CPLR 7510, 7511…). “Outside of the narrowly circumscribed exceptions of CPLR 7511, courts lack authority to review arbitral decisions, even where an arbitrator has made an error of law or fact'” … .
“An award is irrational only where there is no proof whatever to justify the award” … . Moreover, that showing must be made by clear and convincing evidence … . Here, the very limited record does not even reveal what evidence was submitted to the arbitrators regarding, among other things, the parties’ assets and financial condition. Therefore, the Supreme Court lacked any basis upon which to conclude that the award was irrational.
“An arbitration award violates public policy only where a court can conclude, without engaging in any extended fact-finding or legal analysis, that a law prohibits the particular matters to be decided by arbitration, or where the award itself violates a well-defined constitutional, statutory, or common law of this state” … . …
… [W]e disagree with the Supreme Court’s determination that the … award was unconscionable on its face. Unconscionability is a doctrine grounded in contract law, which can be applied to invalidate an agreement to arbitrate … or a marital agreement entered into before or during the marriage … . The doctrine, which requires proof of both procedural unconscionability in the formation of the contract, as well as substantive unconscionability in the terms of the contract … , is not a statutory ground upon which an arbitration award may be reviewed, let alone set aside… . If the arbitral procedure was tainted by corruption, fraud, or misconduct, or the partiality of an arbitrator appointed as a neutral, the proper remedy is to move to vacate the award pursuant to CPLR 7511(b)(1)(i) or (ii). Zar v Yaghoobzar, 2018 NY Slip Op 03170, Second Dept 5-2-18
ARBITRATION (FAMILY LAW, RELIGION, ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT))/FAMILY LAW (ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT))/CONTRACT LAW (ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT))/RELIGION (RABBINICAL COURT, ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT))/RABBINICAL COURT (ARBITRATION AWARD BY A RABBINICAL COURT IN THIS DIVORCE PROCEEDING SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN VACATED, FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION LAW DID NOT VIOLATE PUBLIC POLICY, UNCONSCIONABILITY IS NOT A STATUTORY GROUND FOR VACATING AN ARBITRATION AWARD (SECOND DEPT))