Nursing Home Neglect

Nursing homes owe a duty of care to their patients. As our population ages, however, it is more and more difficult to maintain a high level of care, and there are rising claims of nursing home neglect. Our elderly deserve protection for abuse and neglect, and the lawyers at Gaslowitz Frankel LLC have extensive experience in protecting the rights of the elderly, including allegations of nursing home neglect, nursing home malpractice, and elder abuse.

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Ashburn Health Care Center, Inc. v. Poole - Georgia Court of Appeals rules over agency relationships arising from durable power of attorney and spousal relationship

Posted: June 20th, 2007 by Gaslowitz Frankel LLC

In Ashburn Health Care Center, Inc. v. Poole,1 Plaintiff, acting in his capacity as the executor of his mother’s estate, sued a nursing home alleging wrongful death. The nursing home moved to compel the executor to arbitrate, citing an agreement to arbitrate in its contract with the decedent. The contract in question was signed, not by the decedent but by her husband, in the presence of Plaintiff, as part of decedent’s admissions paperwork. Plaintiff had witnessed his father signing the admission contract but had not disclosed to the nursing home that he had a general durable power of attorney for his mother.The Court found that Plaintiff could not be compelled to arbitrate based upon his mother’s admissions agreement. First, the nursing home could not presume that decedent’s husband was her agent based upon the marital relationship alone and accordingly, decedent could not have been charged with the agreement to arbitrate on those grounds. Second, the nursing home was not aware at the time that decedent’s husband signed the admissions contract that Plaintiff had a general power of attorney for decedent and, accordingly, Plaintiff himself could not be charged with the agreement on those grounds.“Although apparent authority may give rise to an agency relationship, such authority must be based on statements or conduct of the alleged principal that reasonably cause a third person to believe that the principal consents to have the act done on his behalf by the purported agent.” In this case, all of the action cited by the nursing home indicating an agency relationship had been taken by decedent’s husband and son, not decedent herself. Accordingly, neither decedent, nor her estate could be charged with the agreement to arbitrate contained in the admissions contract.

1 Ashburn Health Care Center, Inc. v. Poole __ Ga. App. __, __ S.E.2d __, 2007 WL 1764217 (June 20, 2007).

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