SAN FRANCISCO — An appeals court has upheld a lower court’s decision to refuse a petition to vacate the arbitral award of a couple who sued Jiffy Lube.
Randy and Elissa Stevens filed the appeal from the decision made by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The couple had petitioned the district court to vacate an arbitral award between them and the Jiffy Lube.
“Their petition was one day late, and we affirm on that basis the district court’s denial of the petition,” Judge McKewon wrote in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision dated Dec. 27, 2018.
In their court decision, they wrote that they were setting forth a clarification on how to calculate the Federal Arbitration Act’s three-month filing deadline.
According to the appeal court decision, the Stevenses operated a Jiffy Lube franchise for many years. However, the company declined to renew a lease on their property and they were unable to negotiate a new one with their landlord. Thus the company terminated the franchise contract.
Randy and Elissa sued the company but then agreed to arbitration.
“Three months and one day after an arbitrator ruled against them, Randy and Elissa Stevens petitioned the district court to vacate the arbitral award.”
The district court determined their filing was one day late and they denied the petition.
“The panel held that the petitioners-appellants timely appealed to the Ninth Circuit where appellants filed their notice of appeal within thirty days from the district court’s entry of the order disposing of their timely post-judgment Motion,” the court document stated.
“That the Stevenses’ post-judgment motion was unavailing (or even unavailable) does not render it a procedural nullity. We decline the invitation to inject a 'properness' requirement that tethers the tolling effects of a timely post-judgment motion to its merits,” Judge McKewon wrote.
“Because we may affirm on any ground supported by the record, we hold that the district court properly denied the petition,” he added.