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Maryland Nursing Home Arbitration Victory

By Brian Wolfman

In a really nice opinion, the Maryland Court of Appeals has held that a nursing home could not force the estate of a man allegedly killed by the nursing home's gross negligence to arbitrate claims based on a contract signed by one of the man's relatives when he was admitted to the nursing home. The court held that under common-law agency principles the relative could not bind the man (or, therefore, his estate). The case will now be litigated in Maryland state court. Because the court ruled on agency grounds (effectively rendering the contract for arbitration invalid), it did not reach the other issue in the appeal --- that a provision allowing the nursing home to choose the arbitrator rendered the arbitration clause unconscionable and,therefore, unenforceable. Public Citizen, Georgetown Law's Institute for Public Representation, and D.C. lawyer Stefan Shaiban represented the estate.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).