Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership, dba Winchester Centre for Health and Rehabilitation, nka Fountain Circle Health and Rehabilitation, et al. v. Beverly Wellner, Individually and on Behalf of the Estate of Joe P. Wellner, Deceased

This Court in Kindred Nursing Centers Limited Partnership v. Clark, 137 S. Ct. 1421 (2017), reversed the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision refusing to enforce arbitration agreements based on a state-law rule that singled out arbitration agreements for discriminatory treatment—because Section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires courts “to put arbitration agreements on an equal plane with other contracts.” Id. at 1427. On remand from this Court’s decision in Kindred, the Supreme Court of Kentucky held that the power of attorney granted to respondent Beverly Wellner did not authorize her to agree to arbitration on behalf of her principal, even though (1) the power of attorney authorized her to make “contracts of every nature in relation to both real and personal property”; and (2) legal claims are personal property under long-settled Kentucky law. Instead, the court held that a pre-dispute arbitration agreement relates solely to the principal’s constitutional rights to a trial by jury and to go to court, and does not relate to the principal’s legal claims. The question presented is: Whether Section 2 of the FAA preempts the Kentucky Supreme Court’s newly-announced rule holding that a power of attorney authorizing the holder to enter into “contracts of every nature in relation to both real and personal property” does not encompass arbitration agreements because those agreements instead relate to rights to trial by jury and access to court.