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Schwartz v. Chow2/3/2005
that explanation is really nothing more than a good guess. Appellants' rationale itself, although suggesting a precise and detailed reason for the award, fails to account for $100 of it. This failure undermines their assertion that their theory is the only one that explains the award. More importantly, as the trial court pointed out, appellants' explanation overlooks "a host of variables that just as plausibly explain a fee award which was, after all, made in a lump sum to two claimants in eight cases."
Mr. Chow offers several alternative rationales for the award. Although all of these explanations are plausible to one degree or another, none of them compels the conclusion that it was the basis for the Board's award. (On the other hand, neither does the one offered by appellants.) At least two of Mr. Chow's rationales provide a possible basis. Contrary to appellants' assertion, supra note 12, the Board was not prohibited from awarding a fee for the personal injury litigation if it found that Mr. Chow had not signed the contingency agreement. Instead, it could have awarded a fee based on the lodestar method. See Ginberg v. Tauber, 678 A.2d 543, 551-552 (D.C. 1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1077 (1997). Alternatively, the Board could have based its award on a quantum meruit theory in the absence of a valid fee contract. Borrowing from the reasoning of the trial court, Mr. Chow now asserts:
The Board may . . . have accepted Mr. Chow's contention that he signed no retainer agreement with Cadeaux & Taglieri, but it may also have determined that respondent knew of petitioners' fee-sharing agreement. The Board may have then calculated its award on, say, a quantum meruit basis or a discounted basis, and arrived at an award which embraced all legal services undertaken for respondent by petitioners.
We agree with Mr. Chow and the trial court that this analysis provides an acceptable alternative explanation for the Board's award. This means that there are at least two competing rationales which explain the award, and neither the trial court nor this court may speculate as to which of the two the Board actually adopted. " o long as the record disclose a permissible route to the [Board's] stated conclusion," there is "no need of further proceedings." Sargent, 280 U.S. App. D.C. at 10, 882 F.2d at 533; see Sobel, 469 F.2d at 1215. Nor is there any acceptable reason to remand the case to the Board for an explanation of its decision. Appellants have failed to establish "the probability of 'manifest disregard' of the law," Sargent, 280 U.S. App. D.C. at 11, 882 F.2d at 534, and thus, as the trial court recognized, no further inquiry into the basis for the Board's decision can be allowed.
Reduced to essentials, appellants' challenge to the Board's award is founded entirely on speculation and conjecture. Given the "very limited" scope of review by a court of any arbitration award and the "heavy burden" on anyone who challenges it, Lopata, 735 A.2d at 940, we have no basis for concluding that the Board exceeded its powers or manifestly disregarded the law. The decision of the trial court confirming the award is therefore
Affirmed.
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