Viola, Inc. v. Santa Barbara High School District

points out, on a curiously truncated, clerk’s transcript, consisting of only a part of the documents which we assume -must haVe been in the superior court file or introduced in evidence in the trial court. We state only such facts as were specifically found to be true by the trial court, together with such facts as are necessarily to be inferred therefrom.

We conclude from the findings and from the recitals in a document entitled “Submission of Controversy to.Arbitration,’’ an executed copy of which is attached to one of the pleadings and which is referred to in the findings: (1) that, in 1963, the parties entered into some kind of a contract for the construction of a school building or buildings; (2)- that thereafter a dispute arose over defendant school districts’ liability for alleged “extra’’ work; (3) that a petition to require the district to submit that dispute to arbitration was filed by petitioner; and (4) that that petition was granted by an order of the trial court, made and entered on February 16, 1966. We are not told what the terms of the original contract were, nor what provision, if any, it contained relative to arbitration,

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nor what allegations appeared in the original petition to compel arbitration, nor on what facts and theory the court order of February 16, 1966, was based.

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All that we actually know is: (1) that, under the compulsion of that court order, the parties did, on November 10, 1966, agree to submit a (by then existing) dispute to arbitration; (2) that

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an arbitration was held, resulting in an award in favor of petitioner; and (3) that (after a clerical correction in the mathematics) the trial court entered a. judgment confirming the award.

Nothing in the record before us raises any issue as to the validity of the assumed original construction contract, nor of the existence or nonexistence of conduct by the parties complying with any applicable limitations on the power or mode of actions of respondent districts. We necessarily start with the in this record the respondent districts had acted within their legal powers in contracting for the school buildings, that that contract did not offend any legal limitation on incurring indebtedness, and that any changes in, or “extras” beyond, the work contemplated by the original construction contract and for which petitioner recovered in the arbitration award had been ordered by the respondent districts in the manner required by law. Furthermore, since the only issue that we know that was submitted to arbitration was one over an existing dispute, we are not faced with any issue as to the legality of a contract by a school district to submit future disputes to binding arbitration.