Dallas’ 5th Court of Appeals has vacated and remanded a $22 million arbitration award after finding the arbitrator failed to disclose that a lawyer representing a party in the dispute had given him a ticket to an NBA basketball game, a wine basket and paid for expensive meals, among other things.
The June 28 opinion in Robert C. Karlseng, et al. v. H. Jonathan Cooke focuses on a number of social contacts between JAMS arbitrator Robert Faulkner, a former U.S. magistrate judge, and Brett Johnson, a partner in the Dallas office of Fish & Richardson — contacts Faulkner did not disclose after Johnson appeared in front of him in an arbitration case on behalf of a client.
