Michael von Loewenfeldt and Anna-Rose Mathieson, along with co-counsel at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz PC, have obtained an affirmance in the California Court of Appeal’s Second District of a judgment confirming an arbitration award and awarding attorney fees to the firm’s client, Mark Perry. Mr. Perry was a partner with the global law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP for nearly 28 years. When he left the firm, a dispute arose over his right to retirement payments under the firm’s partnership agreement. He prevailed at arbitration and the superior court confirmed the arbitrator’s decision. Gibson, Dunn appealed and CALG defended the judgment.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. It noted that the parties’ arbitration agreement did not authorize judicial review for legal error, and therefore the arbitrator’s contract interpretations were not reviewable on the merits. The court rejected the argument that the arbitrator exceeded his powers, reached an irrational result, or rewrote the partnership agreement, and concluded that the arbitrator’s use of summary disposition procedures was not a refusal to hear material evidence.
You can read the opinion in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP v. Mark Perry by clicking here.
