IN RE STAEHELI AND PILOT ARBITRATION
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
CHRISTOPHER STAEHELI and ANITA
STAEHELI,
UNPUBLISHED
Petitioners-Appellants,
v
No. 187358
LC No. 94-2103 CZ
JEAN-PAUL PILOT,
Respondent-Appellee.
Before: Michael J. Kelly, P.J., and O’Connell and K.W. Schmidt,* JJ.
O’CONNELL, J. (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
An arbitration award may be vacated where the arbitrator has exceeded his or her powers.
MCR 3.602(J)(1)(C). As set forth in DAIIE v Gavin, 416 Mich 407, 434; 331 NW2d 418 (1982),
“by ignoring express and unambiguous contract terms, arbitrators run an especially high risk of being
found to have ‘exceeded their powers.’”
In the present case, petitioners expressly agreed that “the total liability of the
inspector/inspection company for mistakes, errors, or omissions in this inspection/survey shall be limited
to the amount of the fee paid for the inspection.”1 This is an express and unambiguous contract term.
Nevertheless, as evident by the size of the arbitration award, the arbitrator did not enforce this
provision. A careful review of the “Award of Arbitration” and the remainder of the record yields not a
scintilla of evidence concerning the arbitrator’s rationale for failing to enforce the limitation of damages
provision. While I am mindful that an arbitrator is under no obligation to explain the reasons underlying
an award, I believe, in accordance with the similar case of Farkar Co v R A Hanson Disc, Ltd, 604
F2d 1, 2 (CA 2, 1979), that, given the clarity of the provision in issue, the arbitrator should “be bound
* Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.
-1
by the limitation of damages provision unless in a separate determination expressed in the award [he or
she] find[s] the provision to be” unenforceable for some reason.
Accordingly, I would vacate the arbitration award and remand the matter to the arbitrator
pursuant to MCR 3.602(J)(3) to allow the arbitrator the opportunity to explain or modify the award.
/s/ Peter D. O’Connell
1
In fact, on the same form, petitioners expressly rejected the contractual option of obtaining an
inspection “without a limit on liability to the amount of the fee of the standard inspection/survey.”
Presumably, petitioners consciously chose a “limited-liability inspection” rather than an “unlimited
liability inspection” to save money.
-2
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.