Reported / Citable
Background
Cheryl Beale moved for reconsideration or, alternatively, to lift the abatement in her case against Lowe’s Companies, Inc. and Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC. The court had previously denied her motion to lift the abatement and vacate the arbitration award, and had confirmed the final arbitration award issued on June 20, 2025.
Beale renewed the arguments from her earlier motion and additionally contended that the defendants could not enforce the award because they failed to seek confirmation within the one-year period stated in Section 9 of the Federal Arbitration Act. The defendants opposed her motion.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied Beale’s motion. Although Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) permitted the court to reconsider its earlier decision, the court declined to do so because Beale merely repeated previously rejected arguments and supplied no reason to revisit the earlier rulings under Sections 10 and 11 of the FAA.
The court acknowledged a circuit split over whether Section 9’s one-year period operates as a statute of limitations and noted that the Fifth Circuit had not clarified its position. But even assuming the defendants could no longer enforce the award after one year, the court held that Section 9 does not authorize vacatur, modification, or correction of an arbitration award on that ground. Those remedies are governed by the limited grounds specified in Sections 10 and 11.
Key Takeaways
- Section 9 of the FAA does not itself empower a district court to vacate, modify, or correct an arbitration award because confirmation was not sought within one year.
- The court did not resolve whether Section 9’s one-year period is a statute of limitations, an issue on which the federal circuits disagree.
- Reasserting previously rejected arguments without a new basis did not justify reconsideration under Rule 54(b).
Why It Matters
The order distinguishes restrictions on confirming or enforcing an arbitration award from the statutory grounds for setting the award aside. Even if a party misses an asserted confirmation deadline, that circumstance alone does not create an additional basis for vacatur under the FAA.
The decision also leaves unresolved within the Fifth Circuit whether Section 9 imposes a mandatory one-year limitations period, while making clear that the uncertainty did not affect the outcome of Beale’s motion.