Trustees Of The New York City District Council Of Carpenters Pension Fund v…
Trustees Of The New York City District Council Of Carpenters Pension Fund, Welfare Fund, Annuity Fund, and Apprenticeship, Journeyman Retraining, Educational and Industry Fund v. Manzo
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:21-cv-00504
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
Trustees of the New York City District Council of Carpenters v. Manzo: Judge Schofield treated the unanswered arbitration petition as an unopposed summary-judgment motion.
The petitioners’ arbitration-confirmation proceeding against Vincent Manzo; the order sets how the unanswered petition will be handled but does not state the ultimate result.
What happened
Trustees Of The New York City District Council Of Carpenters Pension Fund, Welfare Fund, Annuity Fund, and Apprenticeship, Journeyman Retraining, Educational and Industry Fund v. Manzo concerns a petition to confirm an arbitration award. Vincent Manzo was served but had not appeared or responded by the deadline.
The court said that default judgments are generally inappropriate in proceedings to confirm or overturn arbitration awards. Instead, it treated the unanswered petition as an unopposed motion for summary judgment, meaning a request to resolve the matter based on the filed materials when no material factual dispute requires a trial.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield ordered that the petitioners’ unopposed motion be treated as fully briefed and decided on the papers already filed. The order did not itself state whether the arbitration award would be confirmed.
The detailed version
- Trustees Of The New York City District Council Of Carpenters Pension Fund v… · No. 1:21-cv-00504
- Lorna Schofield
- Feb. 24, 2021
Background
The action concerns a petition to confirm an arbitration award. The opinion states that Respondent Vincent Manzo was served on January 28, 2021, but had not appeared. He was required to answer, move, or otherwise respond to the petition by February 18, 2021.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that default judgments are generally inappropriate in proceedings seeking confirmation or vacatur of an arbitration award. Instead, under the cited Second Circuit approach, an unanswered petition to confirm or vacate an arbitration award is treated as an unopposed motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a procedure for resolving a case based on the submitted materials when the governing standard permits decision without a trial; this order did not apply that standard to decide whether the arbitration award should be confirmed.
Ruling
Judge Lorna G. Schofield ordered that the petition be treated as an unopposed motion for summary judgment. The petitioners’ unopposed motion was deemed fully briefed and would be decided on the papers already filed. The order did not state the later decision on the motion or whether the arbitration award would be confirmed.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.