# Renaissance Med. Found. v. Lugo Supreme Court of Texas, No. 23-0607 **Renaissance Med. Found. v. Lugo, No. 23-0607 (Tex. May 23, 2025). Holding: The licensing of individual physicians and their independent medical judgment do not by themselves preclude vicarious liability, but the statutory bar on organizational interference narrows an NPHO's liability, and the Foundation did not conclusively establish entitlement to summary judgment.** Practice areas: medical liability, employment, professional liability ## Key issues - A nonprofit health organization certified under Occupations Code chapter 162 may be vicariously liable for its employee physician's negligence, but the statute barring it from interfering with a physician's professional judgment narrows that liability: it cannot be held liable if exercising its right of control over the alleged negligence would interfere with the physician's independent medical judgment. - Because the organization moved for summary judgment on purely legal grounds and did not conclusively show such interference, the trial court properly denied its motion, and the organization may file a new motion under the Court's standard. ## Factual History Rebecca Lugo brought her minor daughter to Doctors Hospital at Renaissance for brain surgery performed by neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Burke, who was employed by Renaissance Medical Foundation, a nonprofit health organization certified by the Texas Medical Board, under a contract requiring him to provide services as directed and under the Foundation's protocols. The surgery left the daughter with permanent neurological damage, and Burke later said a retractor may have migrated into her brainstem (Opinion, PDF pp. 2-3). ## Procedural History Lugo sued Burke, the Foundation (as vicariously liable for Burke) and the hospital, and the Foundation moved for traditional summary judgment, arguing it could not be vicariously liable because it cannot practice medicine or control a physician's medical care. The trial court denied the motion and certified a permissive interlocutory appeal; the Thirteenth Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi-Edinburg) affirmed, holding Burke was an employee acting in the scope of employment (672 S.W.3d 901). The Court heard argument September 11, 2024 (Opinion, PDF p. 1). ## Issues Presented Whether a nonprofit health organization can be held vicariously liable for its employee physician's torts under ordinary common-law rules or whether the licensing statutes change the analysis (Opinion, PDF p. 5). ## Legal Arguments **Renaissance Medical Foundation (Petitioner):** statutes permitting only individuals to practice medicine, preserving employed physicians' independent judgment, and forbidding organizations to interfere with a physician's judgment remove the control needed for vicarious liability. **Lugo (Respondent):** Burke's contract and the Foundation's policies gave it a right of control, and the Court has rejected a task-by-task control analysis (Opinion, PDF pp. 5, 8, 12-13). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case Not applicable to the Court's decision; the opinion does not recite the petition's cert-worthiness arguments. ## Practice Area Tags medical-liability, employment, professional-liability ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Thirteenth Court of Appeals in a permissive interlocutory appeal from the denial of a traditional summary-judgment motion; argued September 11, 2024 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 4-6). ## Amicus Involvement None noted ## Holding The licensing of individual physicians and their independent medical judgment do not by themselves preclude vicarious liability, but the statutory bar on organizational interference narrows an NPHO's liability, and the Foundation did not conclusively establish entitlement to summary judgment (Opinion, PDF pp. 7-24). ## Standard of Review The denial of a traditional summary-judgment motion is reviewed de novo, and the movant must conclusively negate an element of the plaintiff's theory (Opinion, PDF p. 6). ## Court's Reasoning Under the common-law right-of-control test, Burke was an employee, and the Court in St. Joseph Hospital and Murk had already rejected the argument that a corporation's inability to be licensed or a physician's retained independent judgment defeats vicarious liability. But the Legislature created NPHOs as a unique employment structure and forbade them to "interfere with, control, or otherwise direct a physician's professional judgment" in violation of the law, a limit that cannot be waived by contract, so courts must ask whether the organization had a right of control over the allegedly negligent act and whether exercising it would interfere with independent medical judgment; policies that facilitate rather than interfere with medical judgment are allowed, and claims based on negligent policies are direct, not vicarious. The Foundation moved on purely legal grounds without addressing whether control here would interfere with Burke's judgment, so it did not carry its burden (Opinion, PDF pp. 5-24). ## Disposition Court of appeals' judgment affirming the denial of summary judgment affirmed and case remanded to the trial court, where the Foundation may file a new motion under the Court's standard (Opinion, PDF p. 24). ## Vote Breakdown Opinion of the Court by Justice Busby. Justice Bland concurred in the judgment, joined by Chief Justice Blacklock and Justice Devine, arguing that vicarious-liability claims alleging a physician's medical judgment caused the injury have no merit without allegations of unlawful interference, that inadequate-policy theories are artful pleading, and that the Foundation's motion did not adequately notify Lugo of its statutory argument (Opinion, PDF p. 1; Bland, J., concurring, PDF pp. 1-13). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/23-0607. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.