Case Name: ROME v. SINAI HOSPITAL OF DETROIT
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1982-01-19
Citations: 112 Mich. App. 387
Docket Number: Docket No. 44193
Parties: ROME v SINAI HOSPITAL OF DETROIT
Judges: Before: D. C. Riley, P.J., and D. E. Holbrook, Jr., and M. B. Breighner, JJ.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 112
Pages: 387–400

Head Matter:
ROME v SINAI HOSPITAL OF DETROIT
Docket No. 44193.
Submitted December 2, 1980, at Detroit.
Decided January 19, 1982.
Leave to appeal applied for.
Selma H. Rome brought an action alleging medical malpractice against Sinai Hospital of Detroit, Stuart B. Katz, M.D., Richard Kruegel, M.D., R. Miller, M.D., and S. Wilson, M.D. The Wayne Circuit Court, Neal Fitzgerald, J., granted the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration and dismissed the complaint. Plaintiff appeals, alleging that the requirement that one member of the arbitration panel be a physician violates her due process right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal, that the Medical Malpractice Arbitration Act unconscionably abrogates her right of access to the courts, and that the arbitration agreement form signed by the plaintiff is unenforceable because the plaintiff was not provided with an information brochure and a copy of the executed form as required by statute. Held:
1. The requirement that one of the arbitrators be a physician does not violate the plaintiffs due process right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal.
2. The Medical Malpractice Arbitration Act’s abrogation of the plaintiffs right of access to the courts does not render the act unconscionable.
3. Because the act is in derogation of common law, arbitra tion may not be ordered unless there has been strict compliance with the act. In this case, there is conflicting evidence regarding whether plaintiff received an explanation or information regarding the arbitration option and a copy of the arbitration form which she signed. The matter must be remanded for a determination of whether the statutory requirements were complied with.
References for Points in Headnotes
[1] 61 Am Jur 2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers §§ 374, 376.
Arbitration of medical malpractice claims. 84 ALR3d 375.
Validity and construction of state statutory provisions relating to limitations on amount of recovery in medical malpractice claim and submission of such claim to pretrial panel. 80 ALR3d 583.
[2] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arbitration and Award §§ 6 et seq., 17, 36.
61 Am Jur 2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers §§ 374, 376.
[3, 4] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arbtiration and Award § 14.
[5] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arbitration and Award § 15.
[6] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arbitration and Award § 99.
61 Am Jur 2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers §§ 374, 376.
[7] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arbitration and Award § 8.
61 Am Jur 2d, Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers §§ 374, 376.
Constitutionality of arbitration statutes. 55 ALR2d 439.
Remanded for further proceedings.
D. E. Holbrook, Jr., J., dissented. He would hold that the presence of a physician on a medical malpractice arbitration panel fails to preserve the appearance of fairness because a physician has the potential of being overly influential on the panel’s deliberations, because of the relationship between malpractice claims and the availability and cost of malpractice insurance, and because of the physician’s interest in the outcome as a member of the health care community. The statutory requirement of a physician on the panel, therefore, violates the due process right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. He would reverse and remand for a trial on the malpractice claim.
Opinion op the Court
1. Arbitration — Medical Malpractice — Due Process — Statutes.
The requirement of the Medical Malpractice Arbitration Act that one of the three arbitrators assigned to hear a malpractice claim must be a physician does not violate a claimant’s due process right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal, nor does the relinquishment of a claimant’s right of access to the courts render the act unconscionable (MCL 600.5040 et seq.; MSA 27A.5040 et seq.).
2. Arbitration — Medical Malpractice — Statutes.
The Medical Malpractice Arbitration Act is in derogation of common law in that it takes away one’s right to sue and have his case heard by a jury in a court of law; therefore, an arbitration agreement executed pursuant to it must be in strict conformance with the statute before arbitration may be ordered (MCL 600.5042[8]; MSA 27A.5042[8]).
3. Arbitration —• Arbitration Agreement.
The language of an arbitration agreement is to be given its plain meaning.
4. Arbitration — Arbitration Agreement.
Arbitration agreements should be liberally construed with all doubts about the arbitrability of an issue to be resolved in favor of arbitration.
Dissent by D. E. Holbrook, Jr., J,
5. Arbitration — Validity op Arbitration Agreement.
The question of the validity of an arbitration agreement is a judicial question; compulsory submission of a dispute to arbitration cannot precede a judicial determination of the validity of the agreement itself.
6. Arbitration — Medical Malpractice — Physicians.
Physicians should be excluded from arbitration panels hearing claims of medical malpractice in order to preserve the appearance, as well as the fact, of fairness and impartiality because: (1) a physician, because of his professional opinions, has the potential of being overly inñuential on the panel’s deliberations; (2) there is a direct and substantial relationship between malpractice claims and the availability and cost of malpractice insurance, thus giving the physician a pecuniary interest in the matter; and (3) a physician, as a member of the health care community, has an interest in the outcome of a malpractice claim.
7. Arbitration — Medical Malpractice — Due Process ■— State Action — Statutes.
The statutory proscription against issuance of malpractice insurance policies to hospitals unless the policies require the hospitals to offer patients the option to arbitrate claims, and the statutory regulation of the form of the agreement, the composition of the panel, the selection of the arbitrators, and the arbitration procedure, provide a sufficiently close relationship between the state and the arbitration of malpractice claims to ffnd state action for purposes of invoking due process protections (MCL 500.3053[1], 600.5040 et seq.; MSA 24.13053[1], 27A.5040 et seq.).
Charfoos & Charfoos, P.C. (by John G. Konkel), for plaintiff.
Kitch, Suhrheinrich, Smith, Saurbier & Drutchas, P.C. (by Anthony G. Arnone), for defendant Sinai Hospital of Detroit.
Moll, Desenberg, Bayer & Behrendt, for defendants Katz and Kruegel.
Before: D. C. Riley, P.J., and D. E. Holbrook, Jr., and M. B. Breighner, JJ.
Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.

Opinion:
D. C. Riley, P.J.
We adopt the facts as they are clearly and concisely set forth in the dissenting opinion.
For the reasons stated in Brown v Siang, 107 Mich App 91; 309 NW2d 575 (1981), we hold that plaintiff's due process right to a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal is not violated by MCL 600.5040 et seq.; MSA 27A.5040 et seq., where one of the three arbitrators assigned to hear a medical malpractice claim is a physician. Nor is the act unconscionable in that it abrogates plaintiff's constitutional right of access to the courts. Thus, we affirm the trial court's decision upholding the statute.
However, we conclude, further, that the third issue raised by the plaintiff — whether the arbitration form signed by plaintiff was an enforceable agreement where defendant hospital failed to provide plaintiff with an information brochure and a duplicate or original of the executed form as required by MCL 600.5042(7); MSA 27A.5042(7) — requires a remand to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing.
It is conceded that the plaintiff at no time has denied the existence of a signed arbitration agreement form. Nonetheless, the plaintiff contends that an arbitration agreement cannot be legally valid unless it is in strict conformance with the arbitration statute, MCL 600.5042(8); MSA 27A.5042(8). We agree.
In an affidavit dated January 31, 1979, attached to defendant's brief, an employee of Sinai Hospital at the time of plaintiffs admission states that, in accordance with routine practice in carrying out her duties with respect to arbitration agreements, she explained the agreement to the plaintiff, gave her a copy of the agreement and brochure explaining the agreement, advised plaintiff that her signature was not required, and further, that if she did sign she had 60 days within which to revoke her agreement to arbitrate. Her affidavit attests further to witnessing the plaintiffs signature on the agreement.
The plaintiff, in her affidavits, acknowledges that an arbitration agreement was presented to her at the time of her hospitalization but states that no verbal explanation or information was provided her, that she did not receive the brochure setting forth details about the agreement and its revocation provision, that she did not receive a duplicate copy of the original agreement and that she did not understand the entire matter of arbitration.
In concluding that a remand is mandated to resolve the fact issue raised by plaintiff, we find Capman v Harper-Grace Hospital, 96 Mich App 510; 294 NW2d 205 (1980), and Pipper v DiMusto, 88 Mich App 743; 279 NW2d 542 (1979), to be instructive.
In Pipper, the Court held that the plaintiffs affidavit alleging that, at the time she was admitted into the hospital, she was receiving emergency treatment within the meaning of MCL 600.5042(1); MSA 27A.5042(1) (which provides that a person receiving emergency treatment must be offered the arbitration option after the emergency care or treatment is completed) created a question of fact requiring an evidentiary hearing to determine if the plaintiff met the conditions of the emergency exception.
In Capman, the plaintiff argued that defendant conditioned the providing of health care upon her signing the arbitration agreement and thereby improperly coerced her in direct violation of MCL 600.5042(2); MSA 27A.5042(2). The Capman Court, while noting plaintiffs "unsupported assertion" of coercion, concluded as follows:
"[I]n stating its conclusion, the trial court shall set forth the findings of fact and the law upon which it is based. It should be noted that the arbitration statute is in derogation of common law. It takes away one's right to sue and have one's case heard by a jury in the court of law. Although its objects are laudatory considering the plethora of malpractice litigation that has burdened our court dockets, the fact that it is purely a creature of statute in derogation of common law requires strict statutory compliance before arbitration may be ordered. To insure that such strict compliance was in effect herein, remand becomes necessary." Capman, supra, 517-518.
We note that a fundamental rule of construction requires that the language of an agreement be given its plain meaning. New Amsterdam Casualty Co v Sokolowski, 374 Mich 340; 132 NW2d 66 (1965), Kukowski v Piskin, 99 Mich App 1; 297 NW2d 612 (1980). Further, we note that there is a strong public policy in this state favoring arbitration. Hence, arbitration clauses should be liberally construed with all doubts about the arbitrability of an issue to be resolved in favor of arbitration. Kukowski, supra, Detroit Automobile Inter-Ins Exchange v Reck, 90 Mich App 286; 282 NW2d 292 (1979). Nevertheless, consistent with Capman and Pippin, supra, we conclude that a remand is neces sary herein to determine whether or not the plaintiff received a brochure describing the arbitration agreement and whether a duplicate or original copy of the agreement was provided the plaintiff.
Remanded to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
M. B. Breighner, J., concurred.