Texas’ Fourteenth District Court of Appeals in Houston has overturned a trial court’s order denying a party’s motion to compel arbitration. In Mission Petroleum Carriers, Inc. v. Kelley, No. 14-14-00072-CV (October 9, 2014), a man, Kelley, was hospitalized over the injuries he sustained in a workplace tractor-trailer accident. While still hospitalized and receiving a narcotic pain killer, a representative for Kelley’s employer, Mission, asked him to sign paperwork authorizing his participation in a Health and Safety Plan (“H & S Plan”) offered by the company. The plan provides a number of benefits to enrolled workers who are injured in a workplace incident including medical expenses, lost wages, death payments, and more. The paperwork Kelley signed included an agreement to submit specific disputes or claims to binding arbitration. Not long after, Kelley began receiving benefits under the H & S Plan.

A few months later, Kelley filed a negligence complaint against Mission and a third party in Harris County. The man also asked the court to award him punitive damages. Mission responded by filing a motion to compel arbitration based on the provision included in the H & S Plan. Kelley argued that he should not be bound by the provision because he was under the influence of intense painkillers when he signed the plan paperwork. Kelley also claimed that the arbitration agreement was procedurally unconscionable and he had no recollection of signing it. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Mission’s motion to compel arbitration. The company then filed an interlocutory appeal with the Fourteenth District Court of Appeals.

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