SNH SE Ashley River Tenant, LLC, et al. v. Thayer W. Arredondo, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Hubert Whaley, Deceased

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires courts “to put arbitration agreements on an equal plane with other contracts.” Kindred Nursing Ctrs. Ltd. P’ship v. Clark, 137 S. Ct. 1421, 1427 (2017). That means that courts may not decline to enforce arbitration provisions based on rules that are specific to arbitration. In this case, a principal granted an agent comprehensive powers of attorney to manage his affairs and make health care decisions on his behalf. The agent exercised her power to admit the principal into a senior living community. In connection with that admission, she signed an arbitration agreement on the principal’s behalf. The South Carolina Supreme Court refused to enforce the arbitration agreement, holding that the powers of attorney authorized the agent to agree to arbitration only after a claim accrues, but never before. The court reached that conclusion only by reading the provisions in the relevant powers of attorney in severely constrained ways that it would not apply to any other contract. The question presented is whether the FAA preempts the South Carolina Supreme Court’s arbitration-specific approach to construing comprehensive powers of attorney to preclude an agent’s power to agree to arbitrate future claims.