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Ratcliff v. Whitacre11/15/2004
isting arbitration on the ground that Dr. McGinness was not a signatory. (See Zakarian v. Bekov (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 316, 322-323; Izzi v. Mesquite Country Club (1986) 186 Cal.App.3d 1309, 1319.) Thus, even if the standard of review were abuse of discretion, the court's order compelling plaintiffs to submit to arbitration as to Dr. Glaser, Temecula Valley and Dr. McGinness would have no bearing on whether the court correctly denied plaintiffs' petition to compel Inland Valley and Ms. Whitacre to submit to arbitration.
There Is No Justification For Compelling Unwilling Nonsignatories to Submit to Arbitration
Plaintiffs argue on several grounds that Inland Valley and Ms. Whitacre should be compelled to submit to arbitration. Their arguments are not persuasive, and the authorities they cite are inapposite.
Unless a particular claim is subject to arbitration by statute, which is not the case here, arbitration is voluntary and is a matter of contract. (County of Contra Costa v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., supra, 47 Cal.App.4th at p. 245.) The California Constitution provides for a right to a trial in civil matters (Cal. Const., art. 1, ยง 16), and the circumstances under which that right can be waived without the party's express consent are very limited. Those circumstances fall into two categories: cases in which a benefit was conferred on the nonsignatory as a result of the contract that contains the arbitration agreement, and cases in which the nature of a pre-existing relationship between the nonsignatory and one of the parties to the arbitration agreement is such that it is equitable to compel the nonsignatory to submit to arbitration. (County of Contra Costa v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., supra, 47 Cal.App.4th at p. 242.)
Plaintiffs first argue that because the arbitration agreement applied to "all medical services rendered any time for any condition" the court should have compelled arbitration as to the nonsignatory defendants because they rendered a portion of the medical services in question. They provide no authority for the extraordinary claim that a contract can bind those who did not sign the agreement and possibly had no knowledge of its existence, simply because of the "expansive" language chosen by the parties to the contract.
Next, plaintiffs cite a host of cases in which arbitration has been compelled in medical malpractice cases where the injured party obtained medical benefits under the auspices of an insurance contract signed by his or her employer that contained an arbitration clause, or where the injured party is a spouse or dependent of the insured, who either signed an agreement containing an arbitration clause or obtained medical benefits through his or her employer which signed such an agreement. The issue in this case is not whether Michael Ratcliff can be compelled to arbitrate his claims on the basis of the agreement executed by his wife, but whether Inland Valley and its employee can be compelled to submit to arbitration on the basis of the agreement executed by Temecula Valley, which is an independent business entity. The family and employment-relationship cases plaintiffs cite are therefore completely inapposite.
Plaintiffs next attempt to show that Inland Valley is a third party beneficiary of the agreement between Debbie Ratcliff and Temecula Valley, and that as an employee of Inland Valley, Ms. Whitacre is also a third party beneficiary. Harris v. Superior Court (1986) 188 Cal.App.3d 475, on which plaintiffs rely, is inapposite. In that case, the defendant resisting arbitration was a doctor employed by a medical group which contracted with Maxicare, a prepaid health service plan. The doctor's e
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