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A Georgia court has considered an individual’s challenge to an arbitration proceeding conducted by a REALTOR® association.
Winfield Ezell of RE/MAX Premier Cascade (“Challenger”) filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn an arbitration proceeding conducted by the Atlanta Commercial Board of REALTORS®, Inc. (“Association”). The Challenger argued that the arbitration should be overturned for the following reasons: first, the arbitration panel was not impartial because the Association had recently named an individual affiliated with his arbitration opponent “Man of the Year” and this individual was also the Association’s President-Elect; second, the panel violated Georgia law by refusing to issue “blank subpoenas”; and finally, the panel refused to sequester the President-Elect, allegedly a non-party witness, during the arbitration proceedings.
The Georgia Superior Court of Fulton County considered whether the Challenger had alleged sufficient grounds to overturn the arbitration award. Georgia law sets forth five basis for a court to consider a challenge to an arbitration award: (1) corruption, misconduct, or fraud in procuring the award; (2) partiality of an arbitrator appointed as neutral; (3) overreaching by the arbitration panel or imperfect execution of the final and definite award for the subject matter submitted; (4) failure to follow procedure during the arbitration, unless the party challenging the award did not object to the alleged irregularities during the arbitration proceeding; or (5) arbitrator’s “manifest” disregard of the law. The Challenger argued that all of the grounds except for the third one were implicated by the Association’s arbitration process, and so there were sufficient grounds for the court to overturn the arbitration award.
The court found that the Challenger had failed to produce any evidence in support of his allegations, and therefore the court denied the Challenger’s motion to vacate the arbitration award. The only support for the Challenger’s allegations was found in correspondence sent by the Challenger’s attorney to the Association and the Association’s counsel. None of these letters contained evidence giving the court grounds to overturn the arbitration award. The court also ruled that the Challenger had also failed to demonstrate how he was harmed by the alleged misconduct during the arbitration proceeding. Thus, the court ruled that the Challenger had not met the statutory requirements for the overturning of an arbitration and so denied his motion.
Ezell v. Atlanta Commercial Board of REALTORS®, No. 2006CV114240 (Ga. Super. Ct. (Fulton County) May 23, 2006). [Note: This opinion was not published in an official reporter and therefore should not be cited as authority. Please consult counsel before relying on this opinion.]