Khorshidi

INTRODUCTION

In 1987, appellants Michael Khorshidi1 and Nejatolah Rabbanian (collectively, K&R) began a joint venture with respondents Alexander Javaheri and David Javaheri, and a fifth partner, non-party Paul Abdi. Following litigation and an arbitration between K&R and the Javaheris, in 2008 an arbitrator found in favor of the Javaheris. The 2008 arbitration award instructed the Javaheris to recoup their damages by adjusting ongoing partnership distributions the joint venture owed to K&R. In 2014 K&R filed a lawsuit alleging that beginning in 2010 the Javaheris owed them full (not adjusted) partnership distributions. The Javaheris asserted that the continued adjusted distributions were justified under the 2008 arbitration award. After a bench trial, the court found that based on the 2008 arbitration award, K&R owed the Javaheris the lump sum of $276,100 each in December 2009, the Javaheris were entitled to recoup that amount through adjusted distributions from 2010 to 2015, but that the Javaheris had taken too much. The court therefore entered a judgment requiring the Javaheris to repay K&R the excess amount they had collected. Most of the court’s findings were confirmed on…