Orbit IP recently secured a significant victory for client Elden Investments, LLC, persuading the Los Angeles County Superior Court to vacate an arbitration award adverse to our client because the arbitrator failed to disclose circumstances that could cause a reasonable person to question her impartiality. Orbit IP was retained after the arbitration award had issued, and tasked with either vacating or reversing the award.
The dispute arose from a real estate transaction between Elden and William and Leila Hall. Following an arbitration, the arbitrator entered an award against Elden requiring, among other things, the return of a $132,265 deposit, attorneys’ fees, costs, and interest. Elden challenged the award after discovering that, while the arbitration was still pending, the arbitrator had participated in a public “Trailblazers” event sponsored and branded by Klinedinst PC, the law firm representing the Halls in the arbitration. The arbitrator had not disclosed her participation in the event.
On August 12, 2026, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Wendy Chang granted Elden’s Cross-Petition to Vacate the Arbitration Award and denied the Halls’ petition to confirm it. The Court emphasized that Elden did not have to prove that the arbitrator was actually biased. Rather, California law requires an arbitrator to disclose to the parties circumstances that could cause a reasonable person aware of the facts to entertain a doubt about an arbitrator’s impartiality.
The Court found the undisclosed Klinedinst event, which took place during the arbitration (at which the Klinedinst firm was representing the Halls), met that standard because the event was not a typical bar association event, but a Klinedinst firm-sponsored and firm-branded event which singled out and publicly honored the arbitrator for her professional accomplishments., The Court concluded that those circumstances could cause a reasonable person to question the arbitrator’s impartiality and therefore should have been disclosed to Elden’s counsel by the arbitrator, but was not..
In reaching its decision, the Court relied heavily on Mt. Holyoke Homes, L.P. v. Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, LLP (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 1299, the leading California decision requiring vacatur based on an arbitrator’s failure to disclose a relationship creating an appearance of partiality. In Mt. Holyoke, the arbitrator had failed to disclose that he listed a partner of the law firm appearing before him as a professional reference. Judge Chang found the circumstances in our case more analogous to Mt. Holyoke than to cases involving ordinary contacts within the legal community.
The ruling is particularly notable because there has been no similarly prominent California decision applying the appearance-of-partiality standard to vacate an arbitration award on comparable disclosure grounds since Mt. Holyoke was decided more than a decade ago.
Orbit IP obtained a complete victory on the competing petitions: the Court denied the petition to confirm the arbitration award and granted Elden’s petition to vacate it.
The Orbit IP team representing Elden was led by partner Ehab M. Samuel and of-counsel Robert W. Dickerson, Jr.. The case is Hall v. Elden Investments, LLC, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Case No. 26STCP01203 (Honorable Judge Wendy Chang).