Alicia Hickok Quoted in December 2015 The Legal Intelligencer

Philadelphia Partner Alicia Hickok was recently quoted in a Legal Intelligencer article titled, “Nursing Home Arbitration Case Raises Plurality Issue.” The article discussed a recent en banc decision by the Superior Court to disregard a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision.  In Wert v. ManorCare the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had refused to enforce an arbitration agreement, with three of the five justices agreeing that the provision requiring NAF arbitration when that was impossible rendered the agreement unenforceable.  In MacPherson v. Magee Memorial Hospital, the en banc majority refused to follow Wert, saying that it was only a plurality and thus of no precedential value.  Three judges dissented; they would have held that the state Supreme Court's decision was binding as to the specific issue being considered.  Alicia said she was in agreement with the dissenters in that regard, and she observed that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has in several instances viewed principles on which a plurality and concurrence agree as having the force of a majority opinion.

Read “Nursing Home Arbitration Case Raises Plurality Issue” here.