Mississippi Clarifies When “Evident Miscalculation” Exists To Modify An Arbitration Award
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The Supreme Court of Mississippi issued a new opinion that sheds light on a topic that doesn’t come up often: when can an arbitration award be modified due to miscalculation? D.W. Caldwell, Inc. v. W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co., 2018 WL 2146355 (Miss. May 10, 2018).
On appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the trial court decision and instructed that the original award be confirmed. In doing so, it established some guidelines for handling these types of motions in the future. (It applied Mississippi statutes, finding that while the FAA would otherwise govern, the parties contracted for application of the state arbitration statutes. But, it looked to federal precedent to inform its analysis.) Importantly, it held that an evident miscalculation “must be apparent from nothing more than the four corners of the award and the contents of the arbitration record.” Therefore, the district court erred by taking new evidence during the appeal. In addition, the court found that the face of the award (and the arbitration record) did not show any mathematical error, and therefore there was “insufficient proof of an evident miscalculation.”
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