Arbitration & Mediation

Christopher Hopkins and Frank Petosa At Southern Trial Lawyers Conference Discuss Nursing Home Arbitration and the Impact of Who Signs the Agreement

By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

Two West Palm Beach lawyers battled out the plaintiff and defense perspectives on nursing home arbitration clauses at the recent Southern Trial Lawyers Association conference last week. Christopher Hopkins, founder of this site and partner at Cole, Scott & Kissane addressed the group along with Frank Petosa of Petosa and Associates.

The hot trend in 2007 (and 2008?) was the issue of who signs the admission/arbitration agreement. This is NOT so much a question of unconscionability or public policy so much as a fundamental question of contract formation and authority. Frequently, if the Resident signs the admission agreement, it is enforceable unless there are circumstances where the Resident was lacking capacity. On the other hand, there are mixed outcomes when a spouse or adult child signs -- the question of the enforcement of arbitration when it was signed by the health care proxy/surrogate seems to be a state-by-state (court by court?) issue.

Couldn't be there at the conference? Well here's the handout.

Full post as published by Florida Arbitration Law on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).