Maclin v. Greens Nursing & Assisted Living, L.L.C., 2014 Ohio 2538

Decedent Bertha L. Thomas resided at Greens Nursing from Nov 8, 2011 to Jan 20, 2012; she was later hospitalized and died.
Lisa Maclin, as administratrix of Thomas’s estate, sued Greens asserting survivorship and wrongful-death claims based on Thomas’s care and death.
Greens asserted an arbitration agreement signed by Thomas’s legal representative and moved to stay proceedings under R.C. 2711.02.
The trial court held the survivorship claims were arbitrable and stayed them, but denied a stay as to the wrongful-death claims, finding those non-arbitrable.
Greens appealed the partial denial; Maclin conceded that a stay was required for the arbitrable survivorship claims.
The appellate court considered whether the presence of non-arbitrable wrongful-death claims precluded staying the entire action while arbitrable claims proceed in arbitration.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court erred by not staying the entire action pending arbitration of arbitrable claims	Maclin argued wrongful-death claims are not arbitrable and the court properly denied a stay as to those claims	Greens argued that once some claims are found arbitrable, the court must stay the entire proceeding until arbitration resolves those issues	Court held the trial court erred; when some claims are arbitrable the entire action must be stayed until arbitration concludes

Blakemore v. Blakemore, 5 Ohio St.3d 217 (Ohio 1983) (defines abuse-of-discretion standard)
Murray v. David Moore Bldrs., Inc., 177 Ohio App.3d 62 (Ohio Ct. App. 2008) (trial court must stay entire proceeding when some claims are subject to arbitration)
Peters v. Columbus Steel Castings Co., 115 Ohio St.3d 134 (Ohio 2007) (wrongful-death claims cannot be compelled to arbitration)