APPENDIX II: ON ARBITERS (Arbitrators)

1058. • They are called arbiters who, by each opposed party, are spontaneously chosen or admitted, after the manner of judges, to settle some lawsuit.

The pact by which the faculty of composing the lawsuit is attributed to them is called compromise (in English submission). By this pact the adverse parties by mutual consent promise that they will execute whatever is established by the arbiters. But what is established is called in our tongue "award."

Arbiters, whoever they are, once admitted by the diverse parties, properly enjoy the office of judges and perform all their functions, no differently than if they had been designated by public authority. Therefore they can instruct the cause brought to them, defer the matter to another more opportune time, hear witnesses, and finally, with sentence rendered, settle the lawsuit absolutely. Sometimes they designate a third, who in their name may settle the matter, and this one is called "the umpire."

1059. • Since arbiters fulfill the offices of judges, they undergo approximately the same obligations and the same burdens as judges. Hence:

1° They ought not to undertake a lawsuit for the judging of which they do not have sufficient doctrine; otherwise they sin against commutative justice, and contract the obligation of restitution.

2° Arbiters are held to judge according to the laws, unless the parties have imparted to them the faculty of composing the matter from the fair and good. For then from the good and fair they must promote the convenience of each party.

3° They must most greatly beware of acceptance of persons, namely lest, drawn aside by hatred, aversion, or excessive affection, they pronounce sentence against the rules of equity. As to the rest, the same things must be said concerning arbiters as concerning the judges themselves.