Darby v. Sisyphian, LLC
| Decision Date | 26 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | B314968 |
| Parties | AISHA DARBY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SISYPHIAN, LLC, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
CERTIFIED FOR PARTIAL PUBLICATION[*]
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. BC691081 Michael L. Stern, Judge. Affirmed.
Law Offices of Jeffrey M. Cohon, Jeffrey M. Cohon, and Kristina S. Keller for Defendant and Appellant.
Mouton Law and Stacey Y. Mouton; Law Firm of Clifford H. Young and Clifford H. Young for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Under the California Arbitration Act (Code Civ. Proc., § 1280 et seq.) (the Act),[1] a party seeking to vacate or correct an arbitration award must do so prior to the expiration of the Act's statutory deadlines (§§ 1288.2, 1290.6). Sometimes, the party seeking such relief misses those deadlines. If another party to the arbitration has filed a competing petition to confirm that award, is the trial court allowed to consider any of the objections to confirmation raised in untimely filings seeking to vacate or correct the award? And if the judgment confirming the award is appealed, may the party who untimely sought to vacate or correct the award renew on appeal their challenges to the award's confirmation? We conclude that the answer to both questions is "no." Because well-settled law dictates the finding that the appealing party in this case did not meet the Act's deadlines for vacating or correcting the arbitration award, we affirm the judgment confirming that arbitration award and grant the prevailing party her attorney fees on appeal.
Between June 2016 and May 2017, Aisha Darby (plaintiff) worked as an exotic dancer at the Xposed Gentlemen's Club in Canoga Park, California ("the club"). In her "Entertainment Agreement," plaintiff agreed to arbitrate "any controversy dispute, or claim . . . arising out of this agreement." At that time, the club was owned and operated by Sisyphian LLC (Sisyphian).
In January 2018, plaintiff sued Sisyphian for (1) failure to pay minimum wage (in violation of Labor Code sections 1194, 1194.2, 1197 and 1197.1), (2) failure to pay overtime wages (in violation of Labor Code sections 226.7 and 512), (3) failure to pay wages for missed meal periods (in violation of Labor Code section 512), (4) failure to pay wages for missed rest breaks (in violation of Labor Code sections 512 and 1194), (5) waiting time penalties (in violation of Labor Code sections 202 and 203), (6) failure to provide accurate wage statements (in violation of Labor Code sections 223, 1194, 1194.2, and 1197), and (7) unfair competition.[2]
Plaintiff's complaint alleged the relief she sought-which included attorney fees-in three different places for each of the above-listed claims: (1) in the section describing each claim, and (2) two times in the complaint's "prayer" section, once in a subsection of the "prayer" corresponding with each claim and a second time under a catch-all subsection called "As To All Causes of Action."
In reliance on the arbitration clause in the Entertainment Agreement, the trial court in May 2018 granted Sisyphian's motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff's claims.
In September 2018, Sisyphian moved to strike four discrete portions of plaintiff's complaint, and specifically sought to strike the allegations requesting attorney fees listed in the section describing the unfair competition claim, in the subsection of the "prayer" corresponding to that claim, and in the subsection listing the relief sought "As To All Causes of Action." The arbitrator granted the motion to strike those allegations, including those in the catch-all "As To All Causes of Action" section because plaintiff, in her opposition, "ma[de] no effort to defend" them.
After three days of hearings in October 2019 as well as fulsome briefing, the arbitrator issued an "interim arbitration award." The arbitrator ruled that plaintiff was an "employee" (rather than an independent contractor) of Sisyphian; that Sisyphian had not complied with its duties under the Labor Code to pay her the minimum wage and overtime wages, to give her rest and meal breaks, and to provide her accurate wage statements; and that Sisyphian owed her $23,347.25 in damages and penalties for its noncompliance. However, the arbitrator declined to award plaintiff the nearly $40,000 she sought as alleged customer gratuities or any restitution. The interim award invited the parties to file motions seeking attorney fees and costs.[3]
1. Initial briefing and initial attorney fees order
Because plaintiff did not prevail on all of her claims, plaintiff and Sisyphian filed competing motions for attorney fees and costs. After more fulsome briefing, the arbitrator in September 2020 issued an order denying both requests for attorney fees and costs. As pertinent here, the arbitrator cited two reasons for denying plaintiff's request for attorney fees: (1) the arbitrator accepted Sisyphian's representation-to which plaintiff did not respond in her reply brief-that plaintiff's requests for attorney fees in her complaint had been stricken in their entirety, and (2) the arbitrator found that plaintiff had made no attempt to apportion her attorney fees between the claims on which she had prevailed and those on which she had not. The arbitrator asked Sisyphian to prepare a final arbitration award.
2. Plaintiff seeks reconsideration
Eight days after the arbitrator issued the initial attorney fee order, plaintiff filed a motion asking him to use his "inherent authority" to reconsider the order on the ground that Sisyphian's representation that all attorney fees allegations had been stricken from her complaint was inaccurate.[4] After considering further briefing, the arbitrator granted plaintiff's motion, citing Sisyphian's inaccurate representations and plaintiff's lassitude in not pointing out the inaccuracy. Specifically, the arbitrator found that his prior order striking allegations in plaintiff's complaint had not stricken the attorney fees allegations from the sections describing each Labor Code claim or from the "prayer" subsection corresponding with each claim. Thus, the arbitrator concluded, plaintiff's complaint still contained a viable prayer for attorney fees for the claims on which she prevailed. The court then ordered "[a]n entirely new round of briefing."
3. The new round of briefing and revised attorney fee order
As the arbitrator requested, the parties filed a new round of briefing. Although plaintiff's renewed motion neglected to address the issue of apportionment that had supported the arbitrator's prior order completely denying attorney fees, the arbitrator issued a revised order that awarded plaintiff $82,800 in attorney fees (out of the $283,941.25 she sought).
On March 5, 2021, the arbitrator issued his "final arbitration award." did not "take its promises to act neutrally seriously," and asserted that "[i]t [was] hard to assume anything other than bias" against her by the arbitrator. Apart from exhibiting Herculean levels of hubris for lambasting the arbitrator for not remembering details of an 11-month-old order that plaintiff elected not to address in her briefing, the tone exhibited in that motion was discourteous and disrespectful to a degree that transgresses the standards lawyers should exhibit toward the arbiter of any tribunal in which they appear.
III. Postarbitration Judicial Proceedings
On March 24, 2021, plaintiff filed in the trial court a petition to confirm the final arbitration award. Plaintiff served the petition on Sisyphian, via e-mail, on April 1, 2021.
On May 3, 2021, Sisyphian filed and served two documents-namely, (1) a response to plaintiff's petition to confirm, and (2) a petition to vacate or correct the award. In each of the nearly identical filings, Sisyphian argued that the arbitrator had exceeded his powers by reconsidering his initial attorney fees award, so the final award giving plaintiff $82,800 in such fees had to be vacated.
After further briefing and a hearing, the trial court issued a ruling (1) denying Sisyphian's petition to vacate or correct the award, and (2) confirming the award. In its order, the trial court explicitly found that Sisyphian's "papers" were not "timely" because they missed the statutory deadline. Without making any finding that Sisyphian had "good cause" to excuse its untimely filings, the court nevertheless went on to explain why, on the merits, "the result [of its order] would be the same" "[e]ven if [Sisyphian's] papers were timely"; specifically, the court found no merit to Sisyphian's argument that the arbitrator made an error of fact or law that exceeded his powers.
V. Appeal
Following the entry of judgment for plaintiff in the amount of $105,109.75,[5] Sisyphian timely filed this appeal.
Sisyphian argues that the trial court erred in confirming the final arbitration award because, in reconsidering its initial attorney fees order, the arbitrator exceeded his powers. Whether we may consider this argument on the merits turns on two questions: (1) Were Sisyphian's challenges seeking to vacate or correct the final arbitration award timely filed and (2) if they were untimely, may the trial court or this court consider those challenges-or is the trial court obligated to confirm the award and are we obligated to affirm? These questions turn on our ...
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