Mobile Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, LLC, and Britton v. Sliman, etc., [Ms. SC-2025-0303, Oct. 17, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). The Court (Shaw, J.; Stewart, C.J., and Bryan, Mendheim, and McCool, JJ., concur) reverses the Mobile Circuit Court’s order denying Mobile Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, LLC’s (“MNRC”), and Michael Britton’s motion to compel arbitration of the wrongful-death claim asserted against them by the plaintiff, Jeanne Sliman (“Jeanne”), as the personal representative of the estate of her deceased husband, Ernest Sliman (“Ernest”).
The crux of the parties’ dispute was whether Jeanne “possessed either actual or apparent authority to bind Ernest to the arbitration agreement” which she signed for him. Ms. *6.
The Court first explains “[u]nder Alabama law, to avoid being bound to arbitrate the wrongful death claim against the MNRC defendants, Jeanne, in response to the MNRC defendants’ showing, was required to demonstrate either that Ernest was permanently incapacitated, i.e., that Ernest experienced no lucid intervals, or that he was temporarily incapacitated at the time she signed the arbitration agreement, thus divesting him of the ability to bestow on her apparent authority to act on his behalf. See Stephan [v. Millennium Nursing & Rehab. Ctr., Inc.], 279 So. 3d [532,] 539-46 [(Ala. 2018)] (holding that the doctrine of apparent authority does not apply when a nursing-home resident lacked the mental capacity to give the signatory the authority to act on his behalf).” Ms. *18.
The Court concludes that Jeanne failed to prove that Ernest was permanently incapacitated and cites evidence “that the majority of the incidents Jeanne describes and Ernest’s documented inability to recount his own medical history suggest that Ernest’s dementia primarily affected his short-term memory and produced related confusion … [and] MNRC records supplied by Jeanne in opposing arbitration indicate that, while he was in the nursing home, Ernest was able to accurately ‘state[] that he lives at home with his wife.’” Ms. * 23.
After discussing the evidence, the Court concludes “while Ernest at times indisputably suffered from documented memory loss and bouts of confusion, from our de novo review of the record, we simply cannot conclude that Jeanne adequately demonstrated that he was experiencing such significant symptoms at the time she executed the arbitration agreement in this case.” Ms. *28.