Court Rejects Medical Malpractice Defendants' Efforts To Have Lawsuit Transferred to Arbitration

In the case of O’Shea v. Loyalsock Rehab Center, LLC, No. 2023-CV-01142 (C.P. Lyc. Co. 2025 Carlucci, J.), the court addressed Preliminary Objections asserted by a Defendant in a nursing home case in which the Defendants, in part, sought to have the matter remanded to arbitration based upon an arbitration clause.

The court overruled the Defendant’s Preliminary Objections in this regard after finding that the arbitration clause was not obvious or conspicuous in the documents.

The court also rejected the request to transfer the case to arbitration givent that the parties had engaged in discovery in two (2) years of litigation before the Defendants ever raised this issue.  The issue was raised when the Defendant's filed Preliminary Objections to a Second Amended Complaint. 

The court noted that it would prejudice the Plaintiff to have to start the entire litigation over in an arbitration proceeding.

The court otherwise noted that the record lacked any evidence to show that the Plaintiff had the authority or any intention to enter into an arbitration agreement.

The court otherwise struck the Plaintiff’s count alleging res ipsa loquitur given that that doctrine was a rule of circumstantial evidence, not a cause of action.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.


I send thanks to Attorney Thomas J. Foley, III of The Foley Law Firm in Scranton, PA for bringing this case to my attention.