Attorney and Client - Representation Pro Se - Authority to Assert Interests of Another

Arbitration - Judicial Review - Failure to Establish Arbitrator Knew of Governing Legal Principle Yet Refused to Apply it or Ignored it Altogether

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Joel M. Cohen, J.), entered June 28, 2023, which granted the petition to confirm an arbitration award, dated December 7, 2022, and denied Russell Abrams's and co-respondents' cross-motion to vacate the award, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Contrary to the arguments raised in letter requests by petitioners Marcus and Lisa Abrams, who did not submit respondents' briefs, the appeal was timely perfected following this Court's extension of time to perfect to the April 2025 Term.

Russell Abrams, proceeding in this appeal pro se, is without authority to assert the interests of Sandra Abrams, who was a respondent in the arbitration but is not a party to this proceeding, or those of the corporate respondents (see CPLR 321 [a]; Judiciary Law § 478; Martins v Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Ctr., 215 AD3d 474, 474 [1st Dept 2023]).

As to the arguments that Russell Abrams asserts on his own behalf, which he did not raise before the arbitrator, he has not established that the arbitrator "knew of a governing legal principle yet refused to apply it or ignored it altogether" (Matter of Nexia Health Tech., Inc. v Miratech, Inc., 176 AD3d 589, 590-591 [1st Dept 2019] [internal quotation marks omitted]). Concur—Kern, J.P., Kennedy, González, Shulman, Rodriguez, JJ.