LAW: Judgments - Listings - arbitration

Wisconsin Court of Appeals WIREdata Inc. v. Village of Sussex, 2007
MLS has right to public data in e-format

A Wisconsin appellate court has ruled that municipalities have to supply data on properties to the local MLS in a requested electronic format, despite a licensing agreement between the municipalities and a vendor that gave the vendor control over who could access the data.

The vendor developed a copyrighted computer software program that allowed municipal tax assessors to gather property information. When an MLS requested tax data from three municipalities that used the program, it was referred to the vendor, which told the MLS it would have to pay a one-time fee of $6,600 plus additional amounts to access the data.

The MLS sued the municipalities, seeking access to the data under Wisconsin’s open records law. This statute requires that public records be available to anyone paying the copying fee. The municipalities argued that they had licensed the data to the vendor, so the vendor had control of it. However, the state court of appeals ruled in favor of the MLS, determining that the municipalities couldn’t contract away their responsibility to provide public access.

The court also upheld the MLS’s request to receive the data in an electronic database format as within its rights under state law, since the municipalities received the data in that form from the vendor.

U.S. Ct. of Appeals, 5th Cir. Positive Software Solutions v. New Century Mort. Corp., 2007 Nondisclosure doesn’t void arbitration.

A federal appeals court has decided that an arbitrator’s failure to disclose his minimal contact with the attorney of the prevailing party in an arbitration doesn’t change the validity of the decision.

In the case, software developer Positive Software Solutions Inc. and New Century Mortgage Corp. went to arbitration to resolve a dispute over unauthorized copy of software. Before the arbitration began, the arbitrator, who had been selected by the parties, was asked to disclose any circumstances that might affect his impartiality. He disclosed none. The arbitration took place, and the ruling favored the mortgage company.

After the ruling, the software developer learned that the arbitrator had served as cocounsel in an earlier, unrelated case with the attorney employed by New Century Mortgage. According to this attorney, she had never met the arbitrator, who had been employed by another of the seven firms working on the decade-old case.

The software vendor sued to have the arbitration ruling set aside. The trial and appeals courts agreed because of the arbitrator’s failure to disclose the relationship. However, the appellate court later changed its ruling.

Courts in general don’t agree on whether a party challenging arbitration must show an actual appearance of bias or whether just the impression of bias is sufficient to put aside a ruling. In this instance, the court decided that the arbitrator’s failure to disclose the relationship was trivial because the two attorneys had never met. Disclosure would have been necessary only if the arbitrator had a substantial interest in a company that had had more than trivial business with one of the parties.

Access NAR’s online legal newsletter, Letter of the Law.