between Southworth and Ashe constituted “misconduct” warranting vacation of the arbitration award. The contact, however, was trivial. Significantly, Southworth’s casual remark was made to a witness and not to a party. See Rule 29. The remark itself, moreover, discounts the existence of a past or current relationship of any sort between the two men. See Canon II. In addition, at no point in these proceedings has there been allegation that the actions of the arbitrator actually prejudiced defendants. See G.S. § 1-567.13(a)(2). Next, this Court has previously considered the U.S. Supreme Court holding in Commonwealth Coatings and determined it to be too narrow with respect to the intent and public policy purposes of our North Carolina General Assembly. Ruffin 140-41, 374 S.E.2d at 172 (<HOLDING>); Wildwoods of Lake Johnson Associates v. L. P.
holding that arbitrators failure to disclose his prior business dealings with defendant some twenty years earlier did not amount to misconduct holding that arbitrators failure to disclose that his law partners brother was the expert witness attorney did not show evident partiality because the relationship was trivial holding that a district court need not find by any more than a preponderance of the evidence the amount of cocaine a defendant distributed even though its findings increased the defendants sentence from twenty years to consecutive fortyyear terms holding that arbitrators failure to disclose his relationship with an employee and witness for the plaintiff without specific proof of bias did not show evident partiality holding that the constitution does not require the government to disclose impeachment evidence prior to entering a plea agreement with a criminal defendant