Case Story: Earning a Supreme Court Decision on Arbitration Agreements

One of the most impactful cases that I’ve been a part of here at Lanzone Morgan involved arbitration agreements with nursing homes in California. In that case, our client appointed somebody to be his healthcare decision maker, a family member. And it’s a common practice that a lot of elders in California have or will do at some point. And so when Mr. Logan needed to go to a nursing home, his nephew, who he had appointed to be his healthcare decision maker, signed an optional arbitration agreement with that nursing home. Mr. Logan suffered some injuries at the nursing home and reached out to Lanzone Morgan and we represented him in a case. We filed a case in the superior court on his behalf. The nursing home then tried to force Mr. Logan to arbitrate his claims based on that agreement his nephew had signed upon his admission to the nursing home. And we fought against that and argued that entering into an optional arbitration agreement is not a healthcare decision and therefore it wasn’t within Mr. Logan’s nephew’s authority. This case was decided in the California Supreme Court last year and the Supreme Court did affirm that ruling that entering into optional arbitration agreements is not typically a healthcare decision within a healthcare agent’s authority and we were able to represent Mr. Logan all the way through that Supreme Court proceeding. It was really special to be a part of that team that secured this landmark ruling for elders in California that affects the elders right to a jury trial. And we’re really proud to have been a part of that.