Choe v. Pressed Down CA2/8

Filed 6/24/22 Choe v. Pressed Down CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

CHUL LIM CHOE et al., B313970

Plaintiffs and Appellants, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 21STCP00191 v.

PRESSED DOWN, LLC, et al.,

Defendants and Respondents.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Mark V. Mooney, Judge. Affirmed.

The Wagner Firm, Avi Wagner and Charissa Morningstar for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Jamison Empting Cronin, Kevin D. Jamison, Erin N. Empting, and Justin F. Cronin for Defendants and Respondents.

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Chul Lim Choe and Protech Minerals, Inc. appeal from a judgment confirming an arbitration award. They contend a remedial provision exceeds the arbitrator’s powers and ask us to vacate or to correct it. We affirm. I The arbitration spanned 10 days and involved hundreds of exhibits, most of which are absent from the appellate record. Following our Supreme Court’s lead, we draw from the arbitrator’s final award in outlining the parties’ dispute, and we take the arbitrator’s findings as correct. (See Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. v. Intel Corp. (1994) 9 Cal.4th 362, 367, fn. 1 (Advanced).) Because this appeal mainly attacks one paragraph of the 45-page final award, we focus on facts relating to the disputed paragraph. Choe ran a family-owned minerals processing business called Protech Minerals, Inc. We refer to this entity and Choe together as Seller. In 2016, Choe embarked on selling the business to Michael Mattox and Mattox’s new company, Protech Minerals, LLC. We refer to the buying parties as Buyer. There were multiple related contracts between the parties, including separate agreements concerning business operations and the sale of real property. The current dispute concerns the sale of various business assets of Protech Minerals, Inc. in exchange for, among other things, a $3.2 million promissory note and an equity interest in the new company. As the arbitrator explained, “The essence of the dispute is whether certain assets were included in the transaction, or whether the assets at issue were to be part of a second sale and escrow.”