Foley Hoag LLP publishes this quarterly Update primarily concerning developments in product liability and related law from federal and state courts applicable to Massachusetts, but also featuring selected developments for New York and New Jersey.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Holds In Sequential Opinions That Wrongful Death Claims Are Derivative Of Decedent’s Own Claims And Therefore Subject To Arbitration Covenant And Liability Release Agreed To By Decedent -

In GGNSC Administrative Services, LLC v. Schrader, 484 Mass. 181 (2020), a decedent’s daughter and executor brought a wrongful death claim in Massachusetts Superior Court alleging that a nursing home’s negligence caused her mother’s death. The nursing home sued the daughter in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to compel arbitration of the death claim based on an agreement signed by the daughter on her mother’s behalf upon nursing home admission to arbitrate any claims against the facility. The nursing home argued that because the daughter’s death claim was derivative of any claims the mother could have brought herself, it was subject to the arbitration agreement.

The federal court then certified two questions to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”): (1) “Is the wrongful death claim of [decedent’s] statutory heirs derivative or independent of [decedent’s] own cause of action?”; and (2) “If the answer to the first question does not resolve the issue presented to the federal court, is [the daughter’s] wrongful death claim nonetheless subject to [decedent’s] Agreement that her ‘next of kin, guardian, executor, administrator, legal representative, or heir’ would arbitrate claims against [the nursing home]?”