Williams v. Atria Las Posas (June 27, 2018, B282513) __ Cal.App.5th __ [2018 WL 3134869]
John Williams was admitted to Atria Las Posas, a residential care facility, after suffering major brain and other injuries in an accident. Williams signed Atria’s Residency Agreement, which included an integration clause but not an arbitration clause, and then he executed a separate arbitration agreement. Williams’s wife, Vicktoriya Marina-Williams, did not sign either agreement. Shortly after his admission, Williams walked away from Atria and was later found in a ditch with a second brain injury. Both Williams and Marina-Williams sued Atria and a primary care physician for negligence and loss of consortium. Atria petitioned to compel arbitration. The trial court denied Atria’s petition, concluding that the Residency Agreement integration clause was “dispositive” and prevented the court from considering the separate arbitration agreement.
The Court of Appeal reversed in part, holding that the Residency Agreement superseded only prior agreements and not the arbitration agreement later executed by Williams and which specifically provided that it covered claims arising out of the residency agreement. The court affirmed in part, holding that Marina-William could not be compelled to arbitrate because she did not sign the arbitration agreement and her loss of consortium claim was not derivative of Williams’s negligence claim. Finally, the court remanded for the trial court to determine whether the conditions of Code of Civil Procedure section 1281.2, subdivision (c)—providing a third party litigation exception to arbitration—were satisfied. The court rejected Atria’s argument that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and not section 1281.2 controlled. The court reasoned that, because the agreement stated that the parties would arbitrate under the FAA or California law in the event a court determined that the FAA did not apply, the agreement did not preclude application of section 1281.2.
Prepared by H. Thomas Watson and Peder K. Batalden, Horvitz & Levy, LLP
California Society for Healthcare Attorneys
1215 K Street, Suite 800
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