Local Law Firms Home > Nursing Home Abuse News > Pennsylvania Court Overrules Nursing Home Clause In what could possibly become a landmark nursing home case, a Pennsylvania trial court in Westmoreland County refused to honor a binding arbitration clause and dismiss a lawsuit filed against Extendicare Homes Inc. after the nursing home company argued that the court did not have jurisdiction. In Pisano v. Extendicare Homes, Inc. (Westmoreland County, PA; July 2012), the court denied defendant's motion to dismiss. The plaintiff is patient's child. Prior to the patient's death, a binding ADR arbitration agreement had been signed, which required disputes to be settled by arbitration instead of through a court of law. After the patient's death, the administrator of his estate had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the nursing home. After the patient's children filed a civil lawsuit against the nursing home, which Extendicare tried to have dismissed on the grounds that it should go through arbitration. In refusing to grant the defendant's motion, the court noted that the patient's children, who had brought the lawsuit, had not signed the arbitration agreement. The court ruled that contractual rights couldn’t supersede constitutional rights. Instead, they ordered the consolidation of both cases against the nursing home into a single case under Rule 213 of the Pennsylvania Code. Now the wrongful death case filed by the patient's estate and the survival action brought to bear by patient's children will continue as a single lawsuit that will be in lieu of the arbitration the defendant sought. This verdict, and the result of the lawsuit that will now be allowed to proceed, are likely to go into appeal and could well result in another landmark decision that will change the balance of contractual rights of nursing homes against the constitutional rights of the residents being cared for.
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