Carpenter v. Potter
Opinion of the Court
SUMMARY ORDER
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the judgment of said district court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-appellant Douglas Carpenter appeals from the Order of the district
When reviewing a district court’s confirmation of an arbitral award, we review legal issues de novo and findings of fact for clear error. Pike v. Freeman, 266 F.3d 78, 86 (2d Cir. 2001). Federal court review of an arbitral judgment is highly deferential and such judgments are to be reversed only where the arbitrators have exceeded their authority or made a finding in manifest disregard of the law. Fahnestock & Co. v. Waltman, 935 F.2d 512, 515 (2d Cir. 1991); DiRussa v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 121 F.3d 818, 821 (2d Cir. 1997).
Appellant urges this court that the district court judgment confirming the arbitral award must be vacated because the arbitrator manifestly disregarded relevant disability law articulated by PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661, 121 S.Ct. 1879, 149 L.Ed.2d 904 (2001). The district court, however, properly recognized that the questions addressed by the Supreme Court in Martin are inapposite. In particular, Martin never addressed the definition of disability under the Act; instead, it merely assumed that golfer Casey Martin was disabled within the meaning of the Act.
Appellee is, accordingly, correct to emphasize that the relevant disability law is Williams, where the Court directly addressed the threshold question relevant to the arbitration decision and its confirmation, of the standard governing the determination of a disability in the first place. Williams decided that to qualify as disabled, a claimant must experience “substantial limitation” to a “major life activity,” where “to be substantially limited ...,
Appellant selectively cites one page in the trial transcript (without furnishing this court-or the court below-with a full transcript) where the arbitrator seems to understand the basic holding of the Martin case but refuses to allow further examination of a lay witness about it, uttering “I’m not sure-I don’t feel that’s [i.e., walking or sleeping is] a major life activity” (Tr. 133). Whatever appellant wishes us to conclude from this opaque remark made in a tangential context, the arbitrator’s decision and award clearly demonstrated an appropriate application of the Williams standard: it did not deny that walking or sleeping could be considered “major life activities,” only that appellant “is not disabled within the meaning of the Rehabilitation Act.”
We can find no clear error in fact-finding to warrant upsetting the arbitral award and its confirmation in the district court. First, we were not furnished with a complete transcript of the trial, and the selective testimony provided to us cannot help us evaluate the credibility and weight of the evidence, which is primarily the province of the arbitrator. Second, since we review the arbitrator’s fact-finding very deferentially, and there is a substantial basis for those findings in the limited record that we do have, we see no clear error that could justify reversal.
For the reasons set forth above, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.
. The statutory bases for vacating arbitral awards contained in the Federal Arbitration Act are not at issue here. See 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Douglas CARPENTER v. John E. POTTER, Postmaster General
- Cited By
- 2 cases
- Status
- Published