On July 23, 2024, Justice Ruchelsman of the Kings County Commercial Division issued a decision in Gold v. Freeway Carriers Inc., 2024 NY Slip Op. 32551(U), dismissing a motion to confirm an arbitral award for failure to bring it within one year, explaining:
CPLR § 7510 states that the court shall confirm an award upon application of a party made within one year after its delivery to them. If a proceeding to confirm an award is not made within one year of delivery of the award then the proceeding is time barred. In Belli v. Matthew Bender & Co., 24 AD2d 72, 263 NYS2d 846 [1st Dept., 1965] the court explained that CPLR § 7510 is a statute of limitations. Moreover, the court referenced CPLR § 215(5) which states that an action upon an arbitration award maintains a one year statute of limitations. Although infancy generally tolls statutes of limitations (CPLR § 208) there is no such toll available to extend the one-year statute confirming arbitrations awards in cases of infancy. In Elliot v. Green Bus Lines Inc., 58 NY2d 76, 459 NYS2d 419 [1983] the court explained that CPLR 7512 authorizes the court to extend the time within which an application to confirm an award must be made in the event of the death or incompetency of a party. Conspicuously omitted is any comparable provision with respect to the infancy of a party. In this circumstance it must be concluded, the more specific provisions overriding the more general, that the general tolling provisions in the event of infancy set forth in CPLR 208 have no application. However, that conclusion does not in any way challenge the notion that in fact the one year window in which to confirm an arbitration award is treated as a statute of limitations. Furthermore, there is no evidence the respondent fraudulently induced the petitioner not to move seeking to confirm the arbitration award.
Thus, there is no basis upon which to extend the one year confirmation deadline simply because the respondent had made monthly payments pursuant to the arbitration ruling. Indeed, the practice commentaries to CPLR § 7510 state that although a successful party whose arbitration award has been quickly and completely satisfied by the losing party may feel little incentive to convert the award into a judgment, such conversion will help ensure the applicability of res judicata and collateral estoppel in subsequent judicial proceedings. Further, Siegel’s notes that the winner of the award who gets complete satisfaction from the loser voluntarily may find scant incentive for bothering with the further step of confirming it, which means getting a formal court judgment entered on it. But the CPLR provides for such a conversion, and it is perhaps best that the winner make it a habit to get the award confirmed into a judgment. The winner has been held entitled to the confirmation even if the amount of the award has already been paid.
Therefore, the petitioner has failed to confirm the award within one year of its delivery. The petitioner has failed to present any basis why the one year should be tolled.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).