Procedural requirements for confirmation of an arbitration award under the Uniform Arbitration Act (UAA); MCL 691.1702-1705

Holding that the trial court’s entry of judgment on the parties’ arbitration award was procedurally improper, the court vacated the order and remanded. Plaintiffs sued defendants alleging a variety of claims arising out of defendants’ construction of plaintiffs’ home. After agreeing to arbitration, the arbitrator entered an award denying plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract claim, finding for defendants on two of their three breach-of-contract claims, and awarding defendants damages, interest, and attorney fees. On appeal, the court agreed with plaintiffs that the trial court’s entry of the judgment was procedurally improper, finding application of the UAA confirmed their position that the trial court erred by entering the judgment in the manner that it did. “The judgment was not entered upon the [trial] court’s ‘granting an order confirming, vacating without directing a rehearing, modifying, or correcting an award.’ There was no such order granted before or at the time of entry of the judgment, nor was there any motion for such an order made by either plaintiffs or defendants, as contemplated by MCL 691.1702, MCL 691.1703, and MCL 691.1704. Instead, defendants simply submitted for entry a proposed judgment on the award, and the [trial] court obliged by entering the judgment three days later—with no meaningful opportunity for plaintiffs to respond or to file their own motion challenging the award.” And its “post hoc clarification did not change or cure the procedural deficiencies that attended the entry of the judgment—or, for that matter, the prejudice to plaintiffs that flowed from them. As a result of those deficiencies, plaintiffs were unable to oppose entry of the judgment or move to challenge the underlying arbitration award until after the judgment was entered.” And then, the trial court was unable to hear their “motions to that effect until after plaintiffs’ deadline for filing a claim of appeal regarding the judgment had passed.” Plaintiffs should not have been forced to face a “choice between timely appealing the judgment and having the [trial] court hear and decide their challenges to its underlying merits. Nor would they have been forced to face it, had the statutorily specified procedures been followed.” Finally, defendants failed to explain “why entry of the judgment was ‘necessary’ as contemplated by the agreement, but more fundamentally, nothing in these provisions purported to authorize the [trial] court to enter a judgment in a manner that did not comport with the UAA. To the contrary, the agreement expressly stated that ‘[t]he arbitration is to be considered a statutory arbitration pursuant to the Michigan statutes and Michigan Court Rules.’” Vacated and remanded.