The defendant nursing home filed preliminary objections in the nature of a petition to compel arbitration of the plaintiff’s nursing home claims. It attached an alleged arbitration agreement between the nursing home and plaintiff Jane Doe. According to the nursing home, Ms. Doe “willingly and knowingly signed a voluntary, binding Resident and Facility Arbitration Agreement (the ‘Agreement’) wherein she agreed to bring claims related to her residency at the facility, which included those made in the complaint filed in this matter, in binding arbitration.”
Ms. Doe responded by filing an affidavit to the trial court, in which she swore that:
- I never saw the document attached as Exhibit “B” to Defendants’ Preliminary Objections entitled “Resident and
Facility Arbitration Agreement” until today, December 27, 2024. - I did not sign the . . . Arbitration Agreement . . .
- This document was not previously discussed with me or explained to me from anyone at Ambler Extended Care
Center. - I did not review or agree to the document or the terms therein.
The nursing home failed to come forward with any evidence to rebut Ms. Doe’s sworn statements. Furthermore, the nursing home failed to move for discovery. It also failed to ask the trial court for an evidentiary hearing where the nursing home could have cross-examined Ms. Doe. The nursing home did not even submit an affidavit from its employees stating that anyone witnessed Ms. Doe sign the arbitration agreement.
Due to a lack of evidence that Ms. Doe signed the arbitration agreement, the trial court overruled the preliminary objections. The nursing home appealed.
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania stated in its non-precedential decision filed on December 15, 2025: “The trial court had every right to accept Ms. Doe’s sworn affidavit and give it more weight than the Nursing Home’s unsubstantiated assertion that she signed the arbitration agreement … Ms. Doe provided the trial court with substantial, unrefuted evidence that she did not accept the arbitration agreement. Because the trial court found her evidence to be credible, it determined that there was no proof that she accepted the arbitration agreement. In short, the Nursing Home, the
party seeking to enforce the arbitration agreement and the party with the burden of proof, failed to prove mutual assent between the parties. Therefore, no contract to arbitrate this case exists between the parties, as a matter of law.”
Source Jane Doe v. Ambler Extended Care Center, J-A01024-26.
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