No Authority To Sign Arbitration Agreement.

On behalf of her deceased husband, a wife sued the operators of two skilled nursing facilities for wrongful death of her husband and various torts. The two defendants petitioned the court to send the matter into arbitration based upon an arbitration agreement signed by the wife. The trial court found the wife did not have authority to sign on her husband’s behalf, and that she did not sign the agreement in her individual capacity, and denied the petition.  The appellate court agreed the wife did not have authority to sign the agreement on behalf of her husband, adding that this “means she was not his ‘legal representative’ as described in [the] arbitration agreement.”  The appellate court also discussed that the agreement provided that “Resident’s Legal Representative agrees that he or she is executing this agreement as a party, both in his or her representative and individual capacity,” and stated:  “the fact of her signing did not cast her in that status.” (Goldman v. Sunbridge Healthcare, LLC (Cal. App. Third Dist.; October 28, 2013) 220 Cal.App.4th 1160.