Quest International Monitor Service, Inc. v. Rockwell Collins, Inc.

This Court has recognized that while the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) reflects a federal policy of favoring arbitration, “there is no federal policy favoring arbitration under a certain set of procedural rules.” Volt Info. Scis., Inc. v. Bd. of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U.S. 468, 476 (1989). In this case, Petitioner Quest International Monitor Service, Inc. relied on the forum state’s 100- day limitation period when it timely filed in Los Angeles Superior Court a petition to vacate an arbitration award. After removing the petition to federal court on diversity grounds, Respondent filed a motion to dismiss, contending that the petition to vacate was time-barred under the FAA’s shorter three-month deadline. 9 U.S.C. § 12. The district court agreed, granting the motion to dismiss, denying the petition to vacate, and confirming the arbitration award. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment based solely on timeliness, agreeing that Quest’s petition to vacate was untimely under the FAA’s shorter period. Given the prevalence of arbitrations and petitions related thereto, litigants throughout the country deserve to have certainty and fair advance notice as to which limitation period applies in state courts to avoid death of the case by removal. Thus, the questions presented in this case are: 1) Is the FAA’s three-month limitation period for vacatur of an arbitration award a substantive provision of the FAA that must be applied to petitions to vacate filed in state court if the FAA substantively governs?