Sheldon, Iowa — A lawsuit between a northwest Iowa nursing home and the children of a Sheldon man who passed away in 2014, has been ruled on by the Iowa Supreme Court.
According to the decision by the Iowa Supreme Court, in August of 2015, two of Cletus Roth’s children, who were coexecutors of his estate, along with two of their siblings, filed a lawsuit against the Good Samaritan Society in George, charging that the home had “negligently cared for their father, and violated numerous regulations, laws, rights, and industry standards, causing their father personal injury, illness, harm, and eventual death.” Five counts were set forth in the petition: “wrongful death, negligence, gross negligence, and/or recklessness,” “breach of contract,” “dependent adult abuse,” “loss of consortium for the children,” and “punitive damages.”
Good Samaritan Society argued that, since Roth’s coexecutors, at the time he entered the nursing home, had signed an agreement to resolve any issues through arbitration, that the lawsuit was improper.
The District Court asked the state Supreme Court to rule on two questions in the case: 1) Does the Iowa Code require that adult children’s loss-of-parental-consortium claims be arbitrated when the deceased parent’s estate’s claims are otherwise subject to arbitration? 2) Does the fact that a deceased parent’s estate’s claims are subject to arbitration establish that it is impossible, impracticable, or not in the best interest of the decedent’s adult children for the decedent’s estate to maintain their claims for loss of parental consortium, such that the loss-of-consortium claims can be maintained separately in court, notwithstanding that the estate’s claims must be arbitrated?
In it’s ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that, no, the Iowa Code does not require that adult children’s loss-of-parental-consortium claims be arbitrated when the deceased parent’s estate’s claims are otherwise subject to arbitration. The Justices ruled that, based upon their answer to the first question, the second question was moot.
The high court returned the case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa for further proceedings.
