Bates v. Andaluz Waterbirth Center

“To hold a third-party beneficiary bound to an arbitration agreement, the third party beneficiary must have 'manifested assent to be bound by the agreement by ratifying it or asserting to a claim for relief under the agreement.'" Drury v. Assisted Living Concepts, Inc., 245 Or App 217, 224, 262 P3d 1162 (2011).

Defendants appealed an order by the trial court denying a motion to dismiss and compel arbitration of the Plaintiff’s wrongful death suit. Defendant assigned error to the finding that the mother did not sign the agreement on Plaintiff’s behalf as Plaintiff received medical care from Defendants. On appeal, Defendants continue their argument that the infant Plaintiff  was bound by the arbitration clause in the midwife disclosure agreement because the mother signed on her behalf and Plaintiff was to receive care from this agreement. Alternatively, if Plaintiff was not bound by the mother’s signing, Defendants also raised that Plaintiff was bound as a third party beneficiary of the agreement. In response, Plaintiff asserted that neither the text of the agreement nor the intentions of the parties conveyed the mother bind Plaintiff to the agreement. “To hold a third-party beneficiary bound to an arbitration agreement, the third party beneficiary must have 'manifested assent to be bound by the agreement by ratifying it or asserting to a claim for relief under the agreement.'" Drury v. Assisted Living Concepts, Inc., 245 Or App 217, 224, 262 P3d 1162 (2011).  The Court found that the midwife disclosure agreement was not ambiguous and clearly only bound the mother to its terms; there was one signature line for the mother, no mention of the child as a client, and in the agreement itself only mentioned that some medical care would be provided for the child. Thus, if Defendants wanted to bind Plaintiff, this could have easily been expressed but was not. The Court held that Plaintiff could not be bound to the arbitration agreement as a third party beneficiary because the mother never intended to assent to the agreement on Plaintiff’s behalf. Affirmed.