Wallace and Donnetta Duncan, et al. - Page 7

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               In the instant case, the arbitration agreement provides a              
          schedule for submitting information to the arbitrator.  After the           
          initial 30-day discovery deadline was extended from June 5 to               
          July 1, 2003, petitioners made an untimely submission of                    
          information to the arbitrator on July 6, 2003.  Respondent agreed           
          to waive any objection to the untimeliness of this submission on            
          the condition that petitioners submit no additional information.            
          Now, apparently, petitioners wish to have the arbitrator consider           
          additional information.                                                     
               Petitioners have not persuaded us that they should not be              
          bound by the deadlines set forth in the arbitration agreement for           
          submitting information to the arbitrator.  With respondent’s                
          agreement, they have already made an untimely submission of                 
          additional information to the arbitrator.  If petitioners failed            
          to include in prior submissions information that they now believe           
          would have been useful, they have only themselves to blame.                 
               Furthermore, in the arbitration agreement, petitioners                 
          agreed that there is no need “to submit testimony, expert                   
          reports, written summaries or affidavits supporting their                   
          respective positions to the Arbitrator” and that the arbitrator’s           
          authority to request additional information was discretionary.              
          Petitioners have no valid cause to complain that the arbitrator             
          did not exercise his discretion to request the additional                   
          information that petitioners wish to have considered.                       






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