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Parties Involved:
Beverly Enterprises Inc.
Appellee
Judy Cyr
Appellant
GGNSC Administrative Services
Appellee
GGNSC Augusta Windermere, LLC
Appellee
GGNSC Clinical Services, LLC
Appellee
GGNSC Holdings, LLC
Appellee
Golden Gate National Senior Care, LLC
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-10603

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:14-cv-00069-JRH-BKE

BEVERLY ENTERPRISES INC., 

GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL SENIOR CARE, LLC, 

GGNSC HOLDINGS, LLC, 

GGNSC CLINICAL SERVICES, LLC, 

GGNSC ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, LLC, 

GGNSC AUGUSTA WINDERMERE, LLC, 

d.b.a. Golden LivingCenter- Windermere, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

versus

JUDY CYR, 

as Administrator of the Estate of Frankie Campbell,

JUDY CYR,

in her Representative Capacity on Behalf of the Children of Frankie Campbell, 

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Georgia

________________________

(July 31, 2015)

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Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, MARCUS, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Plaintiffs (collectively “Golden Gate”) operate a nursing facility called 

GoldenLiving Center - Windermere. Defendant Judy Cyr, acting as attorney-infact for her mother Frankie Campbell, signed Golden Gate’s arbitration agreement 

on Campbell’s behalf when Campbell was admitted into Windermere. After 

Campbell died in Windermere’s care, Cyr sued Golden Gate in state court under 

Georgia’s wrongful death statute on her own behalf and on behalf of Campbell’s 

other children. See Ga. Code §§ 51-4-2 & 51-4-3 (2010). Golden Gate then filed 

this action in the federal district court seeking enforcement of the arbitration 

agreement and moving to compel arbitration. The district court ordered that all of 

Cyr’s claims be arbitrated. This is her appeal of that order, which we review de

novo. See In re Checking Account Overdraft Litig., 754 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th 

Cir. 2014).

The arbitration agreement Golden Gate drafted contains a provision stating 

that disputes “shall be resolved exclusively by binding arbitration . . . in 

accordance with the National Arbitration Forum [NAF] Code of Procedure, which 

is hereby incorporated into this agreement.” That code provides that “[i]n the 

event of a cancellation of this Code, any Party may seek legal and other remedies 

regarding any matter upon which an Award or Order has not been entered.” R. 48, 

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NAF Code of Procedure (2006). In 2009, after a suit by the Minnesota Attorney 

General, the NAF agreed it would no longer “[i]n any manner participate in” any 

consumer arbitration (including the type of arbitration at issue here) filed on or 

after July 24, 2009 — effectively canceling the code of procedure. See Sunbridge 

Retirement Care Assocs., LLC. v. Smith, 757 S.E.2d 157, 160 (Ga. Ct. App. 2014). 

The parties to this case, by incorporating the code into their arbitration agreement, 

agreed that they could pursue “legal and other remedies” if the code was cancelled. 

That is what Cyr is doing.

In arguing for arbitration, Golden Gate relies on our decision in Brown v. 

ITT Consumer Financial Corp., 211 F.3d 1217 (11th Cir. 2000), but that reliance is 

misplaced. We held in Brown that when the forum chosen for arbitration is 

unavailable, the Federal Arbitration Act provides for substitution of another

arbitrator unless choice of forum “is an integral part of the agreement to arbitrate, 

rather than an ancillary logistical concern.” Id. at 1222 (quotation marks omitted); 

see 9 U.S.C. § 5. First, Brown is factually distinguishable. Although it also 

involved the NAF, which was unavailable as a forum for reasons only hinted at in 

the opinion, the Brown decision predated the consent decree in which the NAF 

agreed not to participate in consumer arbitration of the type at issue here and which 

Georgia courts have recognized cancels the NAF code. See Sunbridge, 757 S.E.2d 

at 160.

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Second, the NAF code is “integral” to the agreement in this case because the 

agreement explicitly incorporates the NAF code, making the code an essential part 

of the agreement. The Georgia Court of Appeals has already held as much, 

interpreting this very agreement against this very plaintiff. Miller v. GGNSC 

Atlanta, LLC, 746 S.E.2d 680, 685–89 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013). We are not persuaded 

by Golden Gate’s attempts to disown the language it drafted.

Golden Gate argues that we should disregard the holdings of Sunbridge and 

Miller because they are “specifically related to arbitration, not just contracts in 

general,” which, according to Golden Gate, means that those holdings run afoul of 

the federal presumption in favor of arbitrability. We are not persuaded. The 

underlying arbitration agreement is a contract, and that contract is governed by 

state law. See Caley v. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., 428 F.3d 1359, 1367–68 

(11th Cir. 2005). The Georgia Court of Appeals in Miller and Sunbridge applied 

general Georgia contract law principles to contracts that happened to be arbitration 

agreements. See Miller, 746 S.E.2d at 684 (“In deciding the validity of . . . an 

[arbitration] agreement, therefore, we apply the usual rules of Georgia law 

regarding the construction and enforcement of contracts.”); Sunbridge, 757 S.E.2d 

at 159–60 (applying rule from Miller). The federal presumption in favor of 

arbitrability does not prevent that.

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We VACATE the district court’s order compelling arbitration and 

REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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