Resident Care Facility Cannot Compel Arbitration of Wrongful Death Action
Since Ruiz v. Podolsky (Ruiz) was decided in 2010, California law has allowed for the compelled arbitration of wrongful death actions by the survivors of people who had agreed to arbitrate their medical malpractice claims. In Holland v. Silverscreen Healthcare, Inc., the California Supreme Court refused to extend Ruiz to apply to wrongful death actions arising out of a facility’s alleged neglect of a resident’s basic welfare and safety needs. Ruiz only applies where the allegation is that conduct that constituted medical malpractice caused a wrongful death.
In this case, it seems that plaintiffs alleged some combination of negligent medical treatment and negligent custodial care. The Court held that plaintiffs should be permitted to amend their complaint to specify the nature of their objections to their son’s treatment.
Skyler Womack was an adult with physical and developmental disabilities. He became an in-patient at 24-hour skilled nursing facility (Asistencia) in January 2020. He died there ten months later. When admitted, he signed a broad arbitration agreement relating to claims he might bring against the facility or its employees. Mr. Womack’s parents brought suit, alleging two statutory violations, negligence, and wrongful death. Relying on Ruiz, Asistencia moved to compel arbitration, and the trial court granted the motion as to all claims except the wrongful death claim. The Court of Appeal reversed as to the wrongful death claim. It granted the motion to compel arbitration in its entirety. It distinguished this case from others in which appellate courts in California had found that the wrongful death was caused by neglect rather than medical malpractice. Finding that Ruiz applied, the Court of Appeals ordered arbitration of the wrongful death claim.
On appeal before the Supreme Court of California, the only question was a factual one: was the negligence at issue “professional negligence” within the meaning of section 1295(a) of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). The Court noted that both the statute and caselaw make clear that professional negligence for the purposes of MICRA entails only professional negligence in the provision of medical services.
Skilled nursing facilities perform several functions, but California caselaw makes clear that professional negligence covers only acts or omissions related to the facilities’ roles as healthcare providers. Failure to provide nutrition, hydration, and medication, for example, justified a claim for custodial neglect rather than professional negligence.
Plaintiffs alleged that Asistencia was negligently understaffed, and Mr. Womack suffered falls and infections as a result of that negligence. While the Court of Appeal treated this as a case of professional negligence, the Supreme Court regarded the errors and omissions as relating to custodial neglect.
The opinion seems needlessly long and repetitive, perhaps because the Court is navigating multiple statutory and common-law factors. Ultimately, the case is a very simple one, and it turns on facts, not law. The law is clear that the Ruiz allows for wrongful death actions that arise out of medical malpractice claims and not for those that arise out of custodial neglect. The problem is that the line between those two categories of wrong is hard to draw. Plaintiffs have not sufficiently specified the causes of Mr. Womack’s falls and infections. The Court therefore allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint to provide more specific allegations.