Opinion
June 11, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Colleen McMahon, J.).
Having participated in the arbitration proceeding for over two years, petitioners' judicial claim that the arbitrators lacked the authority to award attorneys' fees has been waived (see, Rochester City School Dist. v. Rochester Teachers Assn., 41 N.Y.2d 578, 583; Matter of Dember Constr. Corp. [New York Univ.], 190 A.D.2d 537), and, in any case, the arbitrability of the fees was itself an issue for the arbitrators to decide, as set forth in the parties' arbitration agreement (see, Matter of Smith Barney Shearson v. Sacharow, 91 N.Y.2d 39, 46).
The parties explicitly agreed in their Uniform Submission Agreements to submit attorneys' fees to arbitration, and the arbitrators were thus empowered to award such fees pursuant to that contractual provision, regardless of whether there was a cognizable basis for such an award in a judicial forum.
The motion court properly imposed sanctions upon petitioners for bringing a frivolous action, in which they also failed to disclose certain information and made various misrepresentations to the court.
Concur — Lerner, P. J., Sullivan, Nardelli, Rubin and Saxe, JJ.