Robinson v. EOR-ARK, LLC, No. 15-3406 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseAfter Willie Robinson, Sr. died, his son and estate administrator filed suit against Pine Hills Health and Rehabilitation nursing home. Willie had entered into an arbitration agreement when he was admitted to Pine Hills and the district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss and compel arbitration. The court concluded that, under Arkansas law, the agreement is enforceable even though the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) is unavailable to serve as the arbitrator. Even assuming that all listed arbitration fora are unavailable, the arbitration agreement still requires the parties to arbitrate this dispute. In this case, the arbitration agreement does not say that the parties must either arbitrate before one of the five fora listed in the code or else litigate. The fact that NAF has stopped performing consumer arbitration does not prove that the code has been canceled, and plaintiff has not provided additional persuasive evidence to show cancellation. Finally, under Arkansas law, these allegations are enough for a court to conclude that the parties are closely related and that arbitration is appropriate.
Court Description: Murphy, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Smith, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Arbitration. The arbitration agreement plaintiff's decedent signed was enforceable under Arkansas law even if the National Arbitration Forum, one of the listed fora, was no longer able to provide arbitration services; since other fora were listed in the agreement and were available, there was no lapse in naming an arbitrator, and the parties are bound to arbitrate; the parties appear to accept, however, that all of the listed fora are unavailable; in this situation, under Section 5 of the Federal Arbitration Act, the district court must appoint a substitute arbitrator for the parties; the choice of arbitrator was not integral to the agreement, and the unavailability of the listed fora does not create an exception to the applicability of Section 5; in order to honor the arbitration agreement, it must be enforced against the nonsignatory defendants.
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