FAA Preempts State Limits on Med-Mal Arbitration

Scott v. Yoho, No. B265641 (D2d5 Jun. 22, 2016)

The court here holds that some arbitration clauses between a plastic surgeon and his (dead) patient bore on interstate commerce such that the FAA applied. The fact that LA Superior Court was elected as the venue in which any collateral litigation would occur was not an election that the California Arbitration Act would apply instead. And because the FAA applied, it preempted Code of Civil Procedure § 1295(c)’s 30-day right to rescind arbitration agreements in medical services contracts. Because the right applies only to arbitration contracts, it is not a “grounds . . . at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract” and is thus not saved from preemption by 9 U.S.C. § 2.

Reversed