The Supreme Court of Texas has denied a party’s request to review the Dallas Appeals Court’s decision allowing post-arbitration discovery in a case that was filed by an injured worker. In Rodas v. La Madeleine of Texas, No. 15-0340, a woman sought damages from her employer for the purported injuries she sustained in an accident at work. At the time, the woman’s employer was not a Texas workers’ compensation insurance coverage subscriber. The dispute was later sent to arbitration and an award was issued in favor of the employer.

A few months later, the injured worker sought to vacate the arbitral award. According to the woman, the arbitrator demonstrated evident partiality when he did not disclose that he served as the sole arbitrator for another dispute involving her employer’s counsel while her own case was pending. As a result, the worker sought to conduct discovery regarding the arbitrator’s alleged partiality. The trial court refused the woman’s request, but Texas’ Fifth District appellate court reversed.

A previous Disputing blog post on the case stated:

The appeals court said evident partiality occurs when a neutral arbitrator fails to disclose information that would reasonably give an objective observer the impression that he or she exhibited partiality. The court continued by stating, “an arbitrator’s failure to disclose that a party’s representative has previously appeared before him as a party representative in a different arbitration may also be sufficient evidence of evident partiality. See Alim v. KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root)— Halliburton, 331 S.W.3d 178, 182 (Tex. App.-Dallas 2011, no pet.).”

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