Agreement to Arbitrate - Essay Example

From an ethical point of view, a patient should not be bound to a next-of-kin decision relating to an arbitration clause because the patient’s right for vindication under tort law is personal and cannot be made subject to representation or substitution. However, Supreme Court cases have ruled that the actions of a next-of-kin, acting as healthcare surrogate for the patient, are binding upon the latter in healthcare cases (Covenant Health Rehab of Picayune v Brown, 949 So.2d 732-41 [Miss. 2007]). Nonetheless, imposing an arbitration clause upon the patient in the case of medical malpractice would be clearly unconscionable as held in several cases, which means that the patient is within his rights to contest it even if a next-of-kin had agreed to it in a contract with the medical facility.

5-10 Questions of Ethics: Defamation (a) Lemen’s conduct as a whole constitutes defamation, nuisance, interference with business. Defamation is an exception to the First Amendment and is committed when a party spreads falsehood about another to third parties and as of which the other suffers injury (Cohen 12). The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of expression and speech, but not when speech is a falsehood, made with malice, communicated to others and injures the subject. Such statements should not be protected at all because the right of a person to exercise whatever right he has is subject to the right of another, which means a person cannot use his right to destroy another.

The Court must, therefore, rule in favor of the Balboa Island Village Inn, but it can only punish her for what she said in the past and not prospectively in the form of an injunction because this would constitute censorship of content-based speech which is prohibited as held in cases such as Sable Communication of California Inc v Federal Communications Commission 492 US 115 (1989) (cited Cohen 4). (b) Yes, Lemen behave unethically against Balboa Island Village, its owners and employees, and its customers.

Although she must have reasons for disliking the presence of the restaurant/bar in the neighborhood because it disturbs her peace, she took the wrong path in solving her problems. She should have gathered proof of her allegations against Balboa and its owners and looked for legitimate ways to elevate her complaints to proper authorities without deliberately infringing on the rights of the owner, the staff and the customers and worse, spreading lies against them. If the place constituted a nuisance in the neighborhood she could have brought a case against it in court.

Instead, she behaved dishonorably and made herself a nuisance not only to the bar and its owners but even to customers whose privacy she had disturbed and violated.