Doctors, Patients, and Arbitration Agreements: The NC Supreme Court’s Ruling in King v. Bryant

Last Friday the North Carolina Supreme Court issued an opinion that should prick up the ears of any physician, hospital, or healthcare facility that asks its patients to agree to binding arbitration in the event of a dispute.  In King v. Bryant (January 27, 2017), the court’s majority held that a physician was in a fiduciary relationship with a new patient at the time the patient signed an arbitration agreement at his initial intake.  The majority then concluded that, because the physician’s office did not take sufficient measures to disclose the nature and import of the agreement, but instead effectively buried it among other intake papers, the agreement was the product of breach of that fiduciary duty.