Neils Point, LLC v. Joseph Grady

Summary

The Law Court affirmed the Superior Court's judgment confirming an arbitration award that found Joseph and Laura Grady breached their commercial agricultural lease with Neils Point, LLC, by failing to pay proper rent and to grow productive crops, and denying their motion to vacate. The court held the Gradys waived any challenge to the arbitration provision—which they argued was void because the lease was residential—by admitting arbitrability, making their own arbitration demand, and participating in the arbitration without objection; it declined to decide whether the lease was residential or whether arbitration clauses in residential leases are void. The court further held the arbitrator did not exceed his powers because a rational construction of the lease, including the incorporated conservation easement, supported his interpretation that the Gradys were obligated to grow productive crops.