You might recall SCOTUS’s 2017 smack down of a Kentucky common law rule regulating the formation of an arbitration agreement in Kindred Nursing Centers Ltd. P’ship v. Clark, 137 S. Ct. 1421, 1424 (2017). Liz wrote about the case here and here. Basically, in the case, the Kentucky Supreme Court said some unkind things about arbitration, reminiscent of the old-time hostility that the FAA was designed to overcome.
More particularly, three wrongful death cases had been consolidated. In all three, a family member with power of attorney for the decedent had signed admission documents with care facilities that included an arbitration clause. The Kentucky Supreme Court said that the POAs did not grant the family members the necessary authority to waive the principal’s constitutional right of access to courts.
