Federal Arbitration Act and California Law

What happens when the parties agree to conduct their arbitration in accordance with California law, yet there are triable issues that are not subject to arbitration? This becomes a problem in that you could end up with conflicting decisions. In this case, there was a denial of the request for arbitration and the appellate court said that this was not an abuse of discretion.

In addition, in this case, the general contractor failed to pay the full sum due and building inspectors hindered the subcontractor in its work. The general contractor, subcontractor, and owner, were parties to arbitration agreements, but the building inspectors were not. That created a risk of inconsistent decisions based on conflicting conclusions.