Raiteri ex rel. Cox. v. NHC Healthcare/Knoxville

At age 77, Mary Cox (plaintiff) was hospitalized briefly and required follow-up care and therapy. Mary’s husband, Charles Cox, was physically unable to care for Mary and was anxious to find a nursing home for her quickly. Charles arranged for Mary to be admitted to a nursing home operated by NHC Healthcare/Knoxville, Inc. (nursing home) (defendant). During the admission process, the nursing home’s admissions coordinator handed Charles an 11-page form contract between the nursing home and Mary. Near the end of the form was an arbitration provision in regular-sized font. This provision waived Mary’s right to a jury trial for any dispute with the nursing home. Instead, the provision required that a resident’s disputes always be submitted to mediation and then binding arbitration, but the provision did not provide much detail about how these processes would occur. The admissions coordinator later testified that a potential resident could not bargain to have this provision deleted. If a potential resident did not want to agree to the arbitration provision, the person would need to seek care elsewhere. At the time she was admitted, Mary was mentally sound and arguably mentally sharper than Charles. Further, Charles was not legally authorized to act on Mary’s behalf. However, only Charles signed the contract between Mary and the nursing home. Shortly after Mary was admitted, Charles was also admitted to the nursing home and then passed away. A month later, Mary died. On Mary’s behalf, Mary’s daughter (plaintiff) sued the nursing home in state court, alleging that the nursing home had caused Mary’s death through its abuse, neglect, negligence, and fraud. The nursing home moved to enforce the contractual arbitration term and transfer the dispute from state court to private arbitration. The trial court granted the motion compelling the dispute to arbitration, and Mary’s daughter appealed.