Colorado § 13-22-221 - Remedies - fees and expenses of arbitration proceeding.

§ 13-22-221. Remedies - fees and expenses of arbitration proceeding.

(1) An arbitrator may award reasonable attorney fees and other reasonable expenses of arbitration if such an award is authorized by law in a civil action involving the same claim or by the agreement of the parties to the arbitration proceeding.

(2) An arbitrator's expenses and fees, together with other expenses, shall be paid as provided in the award.

(3) Nothing in this section shall be construed to alter or amend the provisions of section 13-21-102 (5).

Source: L. 2004: Entire part R&RE, p. 1728, § 1, effective August 4.

Editor's note: This section is similar to former § 13-22-212 as it existed prior to 2004.

ANNOTATION

Annotator's note. Since § 13-22-221 is similar to § 13-22-212 as it existed prior to the 2004 repeal and reenactment of this part 2, relevant cases construing that provision have been included in the annotations to this section.

Where appellants have not shown section arbitrarily singles out a group of persons similarly situated for disparate treatment, provisions of section, which allow an interlocutory appeal of an order denying a motion to compel arbitration but do not authorize an interlocutory appeal of an order compelling arbitration, are rationally based and do not violate equal protection. Ferla v. Infinity Dev. Assocs., LLC, 107 P.3d 1006 (Colo. App. 2004).

Trial court is not required to conduct an evidentiary hearing on an arbitrator's request for payment of fees. Although the necessity or reasonableness of an arbitrator's fees may be subject to dispute, the parties' due process rights to litigate the scope of the services and the amounts requested are well protected by written motion practice. In re Eggert, 53 P.3d 794 (Colo. App. 2002).

Although section excludes "counsel fees," it appears to cover other costs incurred in the arbitration. Because there was no agreement to the contrary, the statute compels the parties to pay these costs as provided under the arbitrator's award. Thus, to the extent the arbitrator's award represented costs other than counsel fees, the trial court should have confirmed the award. Compton v. Lemon Ranches, Ltd., 972 P.2d 1078 (Colo. App. 1999).

This section prohibits an arbitrator from awarding attorney fees unless the parties have specifically agreed that the arbitrator shall address that issue. Therefore, the trial court did not err in awarding the defendant its attorney fees incurred in the trial court, and the trial court's order was not void for lack of jurisdiction. Camelot Invs., LLC v. LANDesign, LLC, 973 P.2d 1279 (Colo. App. 1999).

This section does not apply to an arbitrating party's attorney. The authorization in this section is not broad or express enough to confer on arbitrators the authority to sanction a party's attorney when no agreement binds the attorney to arbitrate the issue of sanctions against him in an individual capacity. Herrera v. Santangelo Law Offices, P.C., 2022 COA 93, 520 P.3d 698.