During the first week of my civil procedure course as a 1L, my professor asked my class what characteristics we wanted in our ideal judicial system. Notably, my class wanted a system that was fair, flexible but efficient, and one that ultimately came to the right conclusion in a dispute. It turned out, we later realized, that we came up with a list that mirrored many of rules and underlying goals in the rules of civil procedure. What we didn’t know as 1Ls was that when disputes are taken out of the civil litigation realm and into private arbitrations, as many disputes are, the need for speed and finality seem to trump other considerations.

Despite these flipped priorities, it is important to know is that arbitration findings can be challenged and overturned by courts. That being said, the burden on the challenging party is very high and the chances of having the arbitration finding overturned are slim. Nevertheless, there is a chance.

Recently, in a case dealing with the size of storage lockers for postal workers, a dispute that he described as “mundane” in the scheme of important cases that the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota is called on to opine, Judge Richard Kyle (D. Minn.) gave a great refresher on how to challenge an arbitration finding. Would-be arbitration finding challengers take note; this is the rare case where the findings were overturned.

Continue reading →