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Plaintiff'S Motion To Vacate Arbitration Award
Matter on the LAW AND MOTION / DISCOVERY Calendar for Monday, Dec-01-2025, LINE 3. PLAINTIFF TIMBERLY HUGHES' Motion To Vacate Arbitration Award.
Plaintiff's motion to vacate the arbitration award is denied. It is procedurally time-barred. Defendant filed and served the petition to confirm on 9/11/25. (CPF-25-519136). Under CCP 1290.6, plaintiff was required to file her petition to vacate within 10-days after service. The parties did not agree and the court did not order an extension of the response time. (Id.) Plaintiff missed the deadline when she filed her motion to vacate on 11/6/25. (Rivera v. Shivers (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 82, 93-94 [court could not hear motion to vacate arbitration award where party missed 10-day window of CCP 1290.6 and party could not rely on 100-day deadline of CCP 1288].)
Moreover, the grounds to vacate an arbitration award are extremely narrow. (Moncharsh v. Heily & Blase (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1, 13 ["the general rule [is] that an arbitrator's decision is not ordinarily reviewable for error by either the trial or appellate courts"]; Zazueta v. County of San Benito (1995) 38 Cal.App.4th 106, 110 ["Judicial review of arbitration awards is limited"].) "Every reasonable intendment is indulged to give effect to arbitration proceedings; the burden is on the party attacking the award to affirmatively establish the existence of error by a proper record." (Lopes v.
Millsap (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1679, 1685.) A party therefore must generally shoehorn her case into one of the enumerated grounds found in CCP 1286.2. Most of plaintiff's arguments in support of vacating the award are untethered to CCP 1286.2 and cite inapposite federal law. Under Moncharsh and its progeny, there is no basis for this court to revisit the cited merits issues (e.g. application of the delayed discovery rule, weighing of "unrebutted" affidavit, etc.)
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