[JURIST] The US Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments [transcript] in Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], wherein the court will once again be asked to decide whether binding arbitration agreements are permissible. The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled [opinion] that arbitration agreements signed by legal representatives of nursing home residents were invalid, unless the ability to so sign is specified as a power of the representative, as being against the right to have a jury trial. This ruling was counter to a series of US Supreme Court opinions in which the court held that such arbitration agreements valid. Although the Supreme Court currently consists of eight justices, a vote in favor of the nursing home, of arbitration agreements and ultimately of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is expected given the breadth of prior cases on the issue.

The Supreme Court has decided multiple cases in favor of arbitration agreements and the FAA in the recent past. In DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia [JURIST report], the court held 6-3 that the FAA preempts a California court’s refusal to enforce an arbitration clause in a contract. In Nitro-Lift Technologies v. Howard [JURIST op-ed], the court unanimously concluded that the FAA preempted an Oklahoma state court from determining whether an employment contract violated an Oklahoma law that limited the enforceability of non-competition agreements. Holding that only an arbitrator could determine whether the contract violated state law, the Supreme Court simply cited its prior precedent, which purported to rely on congressional intent in passing the FAA in 1925. In Marmet Health Care v. Brown [JURIST op-ed], the court repudiated West Virginia’s categorical bar invalidating arbitration agreements that involve personal injury or wrongful death in nursing homes.