Now I'm curious if these forms go the way of EULAs in the past, where it became obvious nobody is reading them and they agreement is compulsory to proceed to use the software, so it became understood that the agreement is effectively void because of the way it is presented and used.
I think if it can be shown that the provider is making it difficult for the consumer to actually read the form before signing, a judge will actually be more upset with the provider.
What is a patient supposed to do in this case? Leave the office? What if this appointment was scheduled several months in advance, which is not an uncommon wait time? To put this in the way of a patient's health should not be acceptable.
It's not a valid contract if you haven't had the opportunity to read it. A waiver without legal power though? Well, it never meant anything to begin with.
Your signature on the contract will say otherwise. If you say you didn’t have time to read it, the judge is going to ask why you signed it.
Taken another way, this can’t work because otherwise everyone would just sign every contract without reading it and then get out of it later by saying they didn’t read it. Right?
A better one is to insist you have not seen the document and have been forced to sign it to consent to a procedure that was time limited.
Now the onus is on the defense to show that it is not a common practice and who was responsible for that. Pretty excellent line to pursuit, hard to defend.
And easily dismissed when the defendant says "we showed him the document when he signed it. We show it to everyone" and now the onus is on prosecution to prove it.
The onus is not on the one who says it the loudest, it's on the one who can provide proof. The defense can explain to the judge that they turn the screen to show it or whatever it's supposed to do.
A contract signed under duress is not a valid contract.
There's no reason that the provider's testimony is magically preferred over the patient's, and in fact the generaly pratice is to resolve ambiguities in favor of the person who did not write the contract and is not the professional who has had plenty of pratice to know what they should be doing.
When it comes to he said she said you need actual evidence. The judge generally weighs what's said between both parties equally unless there's a reason not to.
