Frazer Ryan v. Mayne, et al.

Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One

November 25, 2025

JSH Attorney:  Brett Silverstein

Last Wednesday, the Court of Appeals issued an Opinion holding that defendants’ failure to timely challenge an arbitration award within Arizona’s 90-day statutory deadline under A.R.S. § 12-3023(B) deprived the superior court of jurisdiction to grant Rule 60(b) relief from judgment confirming the award.

On July 5, 2022, an arbitrator granted an award in favor of Frazer Ryan and against the Maynes. On February 6, 2023, more than 90 days after the award, Frazer Ryan filed an action in superior court to confirm the award and enter judgment against the Maynes. The superior court entered judgment against the Maynes who then failed to appeal the judgment.

On April 12, 2024, more than three months after the superior court entered the final judgment and long after their time to appeal passed, the Maynes moved for relief from that judgment under Rule 60(b). The court denied the Maynes’ motion, concluding a “Rule 60 motion is not a replacement for a missed appellate deadline.”

The sole issue on appeal was whether the superior court erred when it denied the Maynes’ Rule 60 motion. In turn, the dispositive issue was whether the Maynes’ challenge was time barred under A.R.S. § 12-3023, which governs vacating an arbitration award.

In resolving this question, the Court of Appeals first emphasized that Arizona has two unique arbitration acts: the Uniform Arbitration Act, A.R.S. §§ 12-1501 to -1518, which applies to arbitration agreements entered before January 1, 2011, unless expressly excluded; and the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act, A.R.S. §§ 12-3001 to -3029, which applies to applies to arbitration agreements entered after January 1, 2011, unless expressly excluded.

Determining which Act applies is critical because, as the Court explained, the “two arbitration acts use different statutory language to address when a party may seek to vacate an award.” For example, under the Uniform Arbitration Act, Section 12-1513 does not mention the court’s authority to vacate an award and places no time limit on when a party must move to vacate. By contrast, the Court held that under the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act, Section 12-3023(B):

“unambiguously requires a party to move to vacate within 90 days after the party either (1) receives notice of the award under section 3019, (2) receives notice of a modified or corrected award under section 3020, or (3) if the party alleges the award stems from corruption, fraud, or other undue means, within 90 days after the party knows or ‘by the exercise of reasonable care would have … known’ of the ground.”

In this case, the Court determined that the Revised Uniform Arbitration Act applied and the grounds on which the Maynes relied to challenge the award fell within the 90-day deadline from receiving notice of the award under A.R.S. § 12-3023(B)(1). And because the Maynes failed to timely move to vacate the award, the Court held that the superior court had no jurisdiction to grant them relief under A.R.S. § 3023. Thus, the Maynes had no right to any relief under Rule 60.

This case illustrates that parties to an arbitration must pay close attention to which arbitration act applies and timely act within the applicable statutory deadlines.

Brett Silverstein is a new addition to our JSH Appellate Team, where he will work on both appeals and dispositive motions across our practice groups. Brett most recently served for two years as a Judicial Law Clerk at the Arizona Court of Appeals, first for Judges James B. Morse Jr. and Jennifer M. Perkins and then for Chief Judge Randall M. Howe, following his term as a Constitutional Law Fellow with the Pacific Legal Foundation in Washington, D.C. During his time at Georgetown University Law Center, where he earned his J.D., Brett was the Senior Notes Editor for the Georgetown Journal of International Law. He earned his B.A. (cum laude, History and Classics) from Columbia University, and he spent a semester abroad at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain.

bsilverstein@jshfirm.com | 602.263.4468 | jshfirm.com/bsilverstein