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 2019-10

Bradley Sayre v. Jpmorgan Chase & Co. ( 2019 )


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  •                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       OCT 24 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
BRADLEY SAYRE,                                  No.    18-55411
Plaintiff - Appellant,          D.C. No. 3:17-cv-00449-JLS-MDD
v.
MEMORANDUM*
JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.; JP MORGAN
CHASE SECURITIES, LLC; J.P.
MORGAN SECURITIES, LLC; DOES, 1-
10,
Defendants - Appellees.
BRADLEY SAYRE,                                  No.    18-55412
Plaintiff - Appellant,          D.C. No. 3:17-cv-02285-JLS-MDD
v.
J.P. MORGAN SECURITIES, LLC,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
Janis L. Sammartino, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 15, 2019
San Diego, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Before: HURWITZ, OWENS, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
Bradley Sayre appeals the district court’s order denying his motion to vacate
an arbitration award and dismissing his amended complaint. We review the denial
of vacatur and the dismissal ruling de novo, and review factual findings underlying
that ruling for clear error. See Woods v. Saturn Distribution Corp.,
    78 F.3d 424
    , 427
(9th Cir. 1996); Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co.,
    519 F.3d 1025
    , 1030
(9th Cir. 2008). We reverse.
1.   Judicial review of an arbitration award is “both limited and highly
deferential.” Aspic Eng'g & Constr. Co. v. ECC Centcom Constructors LLC,
    913 F.3d 1162
    , 1166 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Comedy Club, Inc. v. Improv W. Assocs.,
    553 F.3d 1277
    , 1288 (9th Cir. 2009)). “Neither erroneous legal conclusions nor
unsubstantiated factual findings justify federal court review[.]”
    Id. (quoting Bosack 
    v. Soward,
    586 F.3d 1096
    , 1102 (9th Cir. 2009)). An award may be vacated,
however, due to “the arbitrary denial of a reasonable request for postponement.”
Sheet Metal Workers Int’l. Ass’n Local Union No. 420 v. Kinney Air Conditioning
Co.,
    756 F.2d 742
    , 746 (9th Cir. 1985); see 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(3).
This case presents one of the rare instances where an arbitration award must
be vacated due to the arbitration panel’s arbitrary denial of a reasonable request for
postponement. The arbitration panel denied Sayre’s counsel’s request for a
continuance, even though it is undisputed that he had a medical emergency. At the
2
time of the continuance request, only half a day of a scheduled nine-day arbitration
hearing had been completed and only a single witness had testified. After denying
postponement, the panel proceeded in Sayre’s counsel’s absence, admitting exhibits
into evidence and hearing only the defense’s closing argument. The panel then
summarily denied Sayre’s claims without articulating how it could have rendered a
“comprehensive evaluation” based on only a portion of Sayre’s case-in-chief and
without addressing why it could not have granted a continuance at least for the three
days for which the doctor had placed Sayre’s counsel off work.
Because the panel arbitrarily denied Sayre’s reasonable request for
postponement, see Sheet Metal
    Workers, 756 F.2d at 746
    , we reverse and vacate the
arbitration award.
2. Res judicata bars claims if an earlier suit: (1) involved the same claims; (2)
“reached a final judgment on the merits”; and (3) “involved identical parties or
privies.” Mpoyo v. Litton Electro-Optical Sys.,
    430 F.3d 985
    , 987 (9th Cir. 2005)
(quoting Sidhu v. Flecto Co.,
    279 F.3d 896
    , 900 (9th Cir. 2002)). Since the
arbitration award is vacated, it is no longer a “final judgment on the merits” and
therefore has no res judicata effect on Sayre’s amended complaint.             See
    id. Accordingly, we 
    reverse the dismissal of the amended complaint.
REVERSED.
3
FILED
Sayre v. JPMorgan, No. 18-55411, 18-55412
OCT 24 2019
OWENS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
I respectfully dissent. In light of all the circumstances before the arbitration
panel—including Sayre’s last-minute announcement that he would be unavailable
for 12 weeks—and the extremely deferential standard of review accorded to an
arbitration panel’s decision, I cannot say the district court erred by denying Sayre’s
motion to vacate the arbitration award.