M. Homes LLC v. Southern Structural Inc.

Southern Structural, Inc. filed an application to stay an arbitration proceeding demanded by M. Homes, LLC, and the trial court granted the motion without explanation. M. Homes appeals, contending that the trial court erred in staying the arbitration because it was the assignee of Majestic Residential, LLC “the Assignor”, the original party to the construction contract with Southern Structural, and therefore, was entitled to arbitrate its construction defects claims against the company. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. This court reviews a grant of a motion to stay arbitration de novo to determine whether the trial court was correct as a matter of law. Holt & Holt, Inc. v. Choate Construction Co. , 271 Ga. App. 292 609 SE2d 103 2004.

This case has a twist, because Southern Structural argues, and the trial court apparently agreed, that M. Homes’ assignor waived the right to arbitration under the contracts at issue by its actions in a related case. M. Homes contends that it did not know about the contracts’ right to arbitration until Southern Structural responded to its discovery in that related case and produced copies of the contracts. It asserts that, once it learned that the contracts contained arbitration clauses, it took no actions inconsistent with waiver and sought arbitration within a very short time.