Pristine Environments v. Signet Jewelers CA4/1

Filed 5/11/21 Pristine Environments v. Signet Jewelers CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

PRISTINE ENVIRONMENTS, INC., D077282

Plaintiff and Appellant,

v. (Super. Ct. No. SIGNET JEWELERS LIMITED et al., 37-2016-00016348-CU-FR-CTL)

Defendants and Respondents.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Richard S. Whitney, Judge. Affirmed. Cappello & Noel and A. Barry Cappello, Wendy Dale Welkom, David L Cousineau, Lawrence James Conlan; Dunlap Codding and Evan W. Talley for Plaintiff and Appellant. Snell & Wilmer and Keith M. Gregory, Patrick William Kelly, Jeffrey M. Singletary, Todd Eric Lundell for Defendants and Respondents. Plaintiff and appellant Pristine Environments, Inc. (Pristine) appeals a judgment confirming an arbitration award in favor of defendants and

respondents Signet Jewelers Limited, et al. (Signet)1 and denying Pristine’s motion to vacate the arbitration award. Pristine contends the court erroneously found that its motion to vacate was untimely under Code of Civil Procedure2 section 1290.6, which according to Pristine did not apply here; but alternatively under that section it showed “good cause” for its untimely response. Pristine maintains section 1005 applies here instead because the parties filed “motions” rather than “petitions,” and it complied with that section’s timeline. Pristine asks this court to remand the matter for the trial court to decide the merits of its motion to vacate. We affirm the judgment. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Signet operates approximately 3,500 retail jewelry stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Pristine provides facility maintenance services to retail businesses, and Signet contracted for Pristine to provide those services for all of Signet’s United States stores. The contract included an arbitration provision, which was invoked when a dispute arose. On February 18, 2019, the arbitration panel awarded Signet $317,302 in damages on its breach of contract claim. The panel further concluded that Signet breached some of its duties to Pristine, but declined to award damages because Pristine had failed to prove them. On March 13, 2019, Signet filed a “motion to confirm arbitration award.” (Capitalization omitted.) A hearing date was originally scheduled for June 2019. On May 29, 2019, Pristine filed a “motion to vacate arbitration award” (capitalization omitted), contending that under either the California