Arbitration – Nursing Home – Admission Paperwork – Resident’s Son – Separate Documents

Even though the Adult Health Care Consent Act gave the decedent’s son authority to sign a nursing home admission agreement on his mother’s behalf, the Act did not give the son authority to sign a separate arbitration agreement. The decedent’s estate is not bound by the arbitration agreement.

We affirm the circuit court’s denial of defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.

Background

When the decedent moved into defendants’ nursing home, her son signed her admission paperwork. The 12-page admission contract contained a clause saying it constituted “the entire agreement and understanding between the parties” concerning the decedent’s admission. The son also signed a separate one-page arbitration agreement.

The plaintiff-estate alleges that its decedent died as a proximate result of sepsis resulting from an improperly treated leg wound and infection that was not properly recognized and treated while the decedent was a resident of defendants’ nursing home. The circuit court denied defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.

Discussion

It is true that a non-signatory is estopped from refusing to comply with an arbitration clause when it receives a direct benefit from a contract containing an arbitration clause.

Here, however, the admission agreement provides it is governed by South Carolina law, and the arbitration agreement provides it is governed by federal law. The arbitration agreement recognized the two documents were separate, stating the arbitration agreement “shall survive any termination or breach of this Agreement or the Admission Agreement.” The arbitration agreement is silent as to whether it could be revoked, but the admission agreement provides, “Resident and/or his/her legal representative may terminate this Agreement at any time, upon written notice to Facility.” The admission agreement and arbitration agreement were separately paginated and had their own signature pages.

Defense counsel admitted, “It’s perfectly true that [the decedent’s son] did not have to sign the arbitration agreement to move forward with [the decedent] being admitted. It was voluntary . . . .” There was no merger in this case, and defendants’ equitable estoppel argument was properly denied.

According to plaintiff, the decedent’s son had no authority to sign the arbitration agreement on the decedent’s behalf. However, plaintiff asserted that the son did have the authority to sign the admission agreement under the Adult Health Care Consent Act (the Act). Plaintiff argues the Act is limited to “health care” decisions and provides no authority for separate contracts like the arbitration agreement. She asserts the Act was never meant to affect anything other than health care decisions and the arbitration agreement was not a health care decision because the decedent could get the health care services covered in the admission agreement without agreeing to arbitrate. We agree and find the decedent’s son did not have any authority to sign the arbitration agreement for the decedent via the Act.

Affirmed.

Estate v. Solesbee v. Fundamental Clinical & Operational Services, LLC (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-007-23, 10 pp.) (Paula Thomas, J.) Appealed from Spartanburg County Circuit Court (Grace Gilchrist Knie, J.) Stephen Lynwood Brown, Russell Grainger Hines, Donald Jay Davis and Gaillard Townsend Dotterer for appellants; Warren Christian, Matthew Christian and Jordan Christopher Calloway for respondent. S.C. App.