I became aware of a complaint recently regarding alleged bias against an adjudicator. One school of thought is that such complaints should be left for the Court to deal with. However, the substance of the compliant was based on adverse comments made in a previous adjudication (by the adjudicator against the complainant) such that the complainant considered that adjudicator should not have accepted a subsequent appointment involving the complainant. I can therefore perhaps understand why the nominating body became involved in an investigation of the complaint.
JR Hartley
I recently became aware of a complaint about an adjudicator who had not conducted a site inspection in a case that involved allegations of defective workmanship. This led me to ponder the question of whether an adjudicator’s decision not to conduct a site meeting or site inspection could be a valid cause of complaint.
A recent complaint I came to hear about concerned the question of whether the adjudicator should have taken a more active role in calling a halt to and/or limiting the number of submissions one party makes. The complaint was that the adjudicator did little to control the number and extent of submissions made by the parties.
From time to time complaints arise regarding decisions containing grammatical or factual errors. I am sure most practitioners would prefer that their decisions were error free, but as long as adjudicators are human it should not be surprising that decisions in a time constrained process may contain typographical or arithmetical errors. So, should the fact that a decision contains an error give ground to a legitimate complaint?
I came across a complaint from a party who, in their eyes at least, had “won” an adjudication, but couldn’t understand why the adjudicator had apportioned liability for some of his fees to them. It transpired that the adjudicator had not given an explanation for his finding which in turn led onto a train of enquiry as to whether the adjudicator had erred.
A complaint came across my desk recently regarding the failure of an adjudicator to declare a potential conflict of interest with a party representative. The complaint was not so much that there was an actual conflict, but that there was a potential conflict and that, because the adjudicator did not disclose the association, this gave rise to apparent bias.
Complaints series
This is the first in a series of short pieces focussing on complaints made against adjudicators. The objective of the series is to raise awareness amongst the adjudication fraternity of the common complaints and to give some guidance as how to avoid them.
Complaint No.1 – “the adjudicator used his own expertise or evidence”
Complaints series
This is the second in our series of articles dealing with complaints against adjudicators.
Complaint No.2 – “the adjudicator failed to give reasons or gave inadequate reasons”
An example of this type of complaint is where an adjudicator was obliged to give reasons, but the aggrieved party believes that the adjudicator failed to give them or, perhaps more commonly, that the reasons given were inadequate.