Quinn Racusin and Gazzola Chartered v Pavich Law Group PC et al (re Wye Oak Technology, Inc arbitration) - United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Nos 25-CV-0086 and 25-CV-02291 - 6 August 2026
Country
Year
2026
Summary
Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2021-CA-004580-B)
This court sua sponte consolidated the appeal of the Superior Court's order denying appellant's petition for judicial review and vacatur of the final award and granting appellees' joint opposition and cross-motion to confirm the final arbitration award, No. 25-CV-0086, with the appeal of the court's entry of final judgment, No. 25-CV-0229.
BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge: In this appeal, four law firms that jointly represented appellee Wye Oak Technology, Inc. (Wye Oak) dispute the arbitrator's allocation of their contingency attorneys' fees and the scope of the arbitrator's authority. In anticipation of the deadline to petition for attorneys' fees in a civil action in federal district court (Iraq Litigation), the Law Firms executed an Agreement Concerning Attorneys' Fees (ACAF), in which they agreed that Wye Oak would pay the Law Firms a cumulative contingency fee of forty-six percent of its damages award from the Iraq Litigation. The ACAF included an arbitration clause. QRG did not seek attorney's fees in arbitration because it believed that its share of the award was supposed to be the subject of future negotiation and was awarded zero percent of the attorneys' fees by the arbitrator. QRG asks us to reverse the Superior Court's order confirming the arbitrator's final award and denying QRG's motion for vacatur of the final award.
QRG argues that the court erred in rejecting its argument that "[t]here was no agreement to arbitrate" because the ACAF was the product of fraudulent inducement and duress.3 Additionally, QRG contends that the "arbitrator exceeded the arbitrator's powers" based on the scope of the ACAF's arbitration clause.4 For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the court correctly determined that QRG failed to establish fraudulent inducement or duress and that the arbitrator acted within the scope of the ACAF's arbitration clause. We affirm the judgment of the Superior Court confirming the arbitration award.
