Garrow v. Nicolai

32 P. 1036, 24 Or. 76, 1893 Ore. LEXIS 85
Oregon Supreme Court·Decided April 19, 1893·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice Lord

delivered the opinion of the court.

1. It is claimed that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the plea of an arbitrament and award, because [82] the award is a conclusive defense to the suit. This is challenged on the ground that the award does not follow the submission, and that if it did, it would not cover the issues in this suit. The facts show that the suit was brought originally to obtain a dissolution of the copartnership, and an accounting of its affairs; that the partners disagreed, the plaintiff claiming that the business had been profitable, and the defendant claiming that it had been unprofitable, and attended with loss; that for the purpose of settling their differences in this regard, they entered into the arbitration agreement set out as a defense; that thereafter, the mill and its appurtenances were sold under execution, and bought by one Conyers, under the circumstances of fraud alleged in the supplemental complaint, and denied in the answer, thus forming an additional issue. To sustain the contention of the defendant it is essential to the validity of the award that it should be consonant with the terms of the submission, and . that it should be coextensive with the issues involved, in order to operate as a bar to the suit. It is a fundamental principle that the award must be consistent with the submission, and that it must not extend to persons or things which are not embraced within its terms. Mr. Caldwell says: “ It is one of the requisites of a valid award that it be consonant to the submission,” and it “must not extend to persons or things beyond the scope of the submission”: Caldwell, Arbitration, 226-7. The power of the arbitrators is derived entirely from the submission, and any award which they may render in excess of the power conferred upon them, will be void. The submission is the measure of their authority, and necessarily they must confine their judgment to the matters submitted by it, and not extend it to those not comprehended within its scope. In Carnochan v. Christie, 11 Wheat. 446, it was held that an award must decide the whole matter submitted to the arbitrators, and that it must not extend to matters not embraced in [83] the submission. In commenting upon the requisites of a valid award, Gilchrist, C. J., said: “It is that the award shall embrace all the matters of dispute submitted, or, in other words, shall follow the terms of the submission, so that the parties may have accomplished all the substantial purposes they may be supposed to have had in entering upon the reference.” An award which puts an end to the original controversy is a conclusive bar to an action on the original matter. It has the same effect as' a judgment, and concludes the parties to the controversy effectually from litigating the same matters anew. It is in the nature of a judgment, and ought to be decisive, for if it does not determine the matter it becomes the cause of a new controversy: Bacon’s Abridgment, 331; Colcord v. Fletcher, 50 Me. 398. “The decision, if valid,” says Foster, J., “is a judgment, or in the nature of a judicial decision, rendered by agreement of the parties; and it is to be enforced as if the parties had agreed, without arbitration, that their rights are what the arbitrators have decided”: Truesdale v. Straw, 58 N. H. 218. There is, and ought to he, no difference in the effect of an adjudication, as a bar to a subsequent suit for the same cause, whether it is pronounced by judges selected by the parties or appointed by the state. “In either case,” Gardner, 0. J., said, “every consideration of public policy requires that after the parties have been once fully and fairly heard further litigation as to the same matter should cease, and no satisfactory reason can be assigned why a judgment, as an act by the law,' should estop the parties, and an award, which is another name for a judgment, which the parties have expressly stipulated should be final as to the subject submitted, should not be equally conclusive”: Brazill v. Isham, 12 N. Y. 15.

• It would seem plain upon sound principles of law and justice, that, whenever two persons submit any particular matter or matters in dispute or controversy between them [84] to the determination of a third person, whom they have mutually selected, his power to act as a judge is limited to the particular matter or matters specified, and that any exercise of his judgment upon any other question is a usurpation. , The award must be within the authority conferred by the submission under which it is made, and if it exceeds that authority it is void, at least for the excess. An award will be construed favorably, so as to uphold it, if possible. No intendments will be indulged to overturn it, but, on the contrary, every intendment will be made in its favor. If the award be good in part, and bad in part, that which is good may be separated from that which is bad, and the one is in nowise dependent on the other. Under the rute that all reasonable presumptions and intendments are to be indulged in favor of the validity of awards, the court will uphold the award as to that part which is good, and reject that part which is bad, in order to give effect to the action of the arbitrators as far as it is possible to do so, consistently with the agreement of the parties: 1 Am. & Eng. Enc. 710. But this principle can have no application where, upon the face of the award, the arbitrators have undertaken to decide other or different questions than those which are submitted to them. When the parties have specified the particular matters in dispute upon which the arbitrators are authorized to make an award, it cannot be presumed that they are empowered to maké an award upon other and different matters. To so hold, would bind the parties by an award upon matters to which they never consented that the arbitrators should consider or decide. Such an award is not binding upon either party, because it is founded upon matters which the arbitrators had no authority to decide, and consequently it is of no legal validity.

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Garrow v. Nicolai, 32 P. 1036, 24 Or. 76, 1893 Ore. LEXIS 85 (Or. 1893).

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