Kaiser Found. Hospitals, Inc. v. SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES CTY.

Opinion

GATES, J.

Petitioners, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., and Southern California Permanente Medical Group (Kaiser), seek a writ of mandate directing the superior court to set aside its order of January 20, 1993, granting real parties’ motion to vacate an arbitration award.

[515]

Real parties’ wrongful death action against Kaiser was submitted to binding arbitration pursuant to the provisions of Kaiser’s medical and hospital service agreement with the decedent. That agreement required that each party select one arbitrator, and that these two would then choose a neutral arbitrator. Kaiser’s appointed arbitrator suggested, and the Cobums agreed, that retired Judge Ralph Drummond be appointed as the neutral arbitrator. Drummond did not communicate to real parties his past relations with Kaiser. The subsequently held proceedings resulted in an award in favor of Kaiser.

Thereafter, upon the filing of

Neaman

v.

Kaiser Foundation Hospital

(1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 1170 [11 Cal.Rptr.2d 879], real parties discovered that, in tmth, Drummond had served as Kaiser’s party arbitrator on a number of prior occasions. Therefore, they moved the trial court to vacate the instant award, as the appellate court had done in

Neaman,

when it concluded that Drummond’s “relationship with Kaiser was a substantial business relationship,” which “should have been fully disclosed to the Neamans.”

(Id.

at p. 1177.)

In opposing this motion, Kaiser necessarily acknowledged Drummond’s failure to disclose his past services for Kaiser. It sought instead to rely upon a letter its counsel had sent real parties’ counsel approxmiately two years after Drummond had been selected as the neutral arbitrator. When this effort proved unsuccessful at the trial level, it was continued here.