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To find a third-party a "healthcare surrogate" for the purpose of contracting under Mississippi's Uniform Healthcare Act, the person for whom the surrogate is acting must be incompetent at the time of contracting, according to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
In Grenada Living Center, LLC v. Coleman, No. 2006-CA-00169-SCT, 2007 WL 2128392 (Miss. July 26, 2007), Coleman was admitted to Grenada's nursing home facility with the help of his half-sister. Coleman's half-sister signed his admission contract, which included an arbitration agreement.
Coleman later died while in the facility's care, and Coleman's son brought a wrongful death suit against Grenada. Grenada moved to compel arbitration of the claim, with Coleman opposing the motion, alleging Coleman had never agreed to arbitrate claims arising out of his residency at Grenada.
The Court held that Coleman could not be held to have agreed to arbitrate any claims because he was not a signatory to the agreement at the time of admission, and his half-sister lacked the legal authority to bind him to the agreement. Grenada argued that she had acted as his health surrogate under Mississippi's Uniform Healthcare Decisions Act, and therefore had the authority to bind Coleman. The Court held this argument to be procedurally barred, but noted that Coleman was competent at the time of admission, and the Act did not provide legal authority to a healthcare surrogate to bind competent parties to contracts.
The Court also rejected Grenada's contention that Coleman could be bound as a third-party beneficiary to the agreement. Under the circumstances, according to the Court, no valid arbitration clause existed between Coleman and Grenada in the first place, and that any assertion of a third-party beneficiary relationship was therefore misplaced.
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