Nursing Home Arbitration

More and more Americans are finding that nursing home facilities can exploit residents and their families through forced arbitration clauses, which essentially sign away families' rights to sue the facility for negligent caregiving.

After Beulah Addison suffered a stroke, she and her family made the agonizing decision for Addison to move into a nursing home. But the nursing home they chose employed a con artist who would end up scamming Addison out of her house.

Yet when Addison tried to sue the nursing home to hold it accountable for its role in this con game, her case was tossed out of court. The reason: shortly after Addison checked in, the nursing home thrust a document into her hands and told her to sign it. That document was a binding arbitration agreement, and it stated that if the nursing home broke the law, no matter how drastically, Addison could only seek relief from a biased, privatized arbitration forum.

Stories like this are all too common. Abusive and neglectful long-term care facilities are increasingly avoiding accountability for their actions – and becoming more brazen in their use of forced arbitration. In one of the most egregious cases, an assisted-living center tried to force an elderly Alzheimer's patient into arbitration after she was found covered in fire ants.

Long-term care recipients and their loved ones must be wary of arbitration clauses snuck into nursing home and assisted living center admissions papers. In some cases, new residents are under no obligation to sign such agreements, and will be admitted into a long-term care facility even if they refuse – although nursing home staffers often withhold this fact. However, in many cases, nursing homes will refuse to admit new residents unless they agree to sign away their rights and accept forced arbitration terms. These residents face the unenviable choice of either signing away their rights or searching for another long-term care facility that could be many miles from their families.