# Ortiz v. Nelapatla Supreme Court of Texas, No. 23-0953 **Ortiz v. Nelapatla, No. 23-0953 (Tex. May 1, 2026). Holding: Section 18.001 affidavits may be partially controverted, and a partially controverted affidavit may not be excluded from evidence in its entirety solely because portions are controverted: the unchallenged portions remain competent evidence and may go to the jury, with controverted portions redacted, and a counteraffidavit that affirmatively attests what portion of an expense is reasonable is admissible to support that portion.** Practice areas: personal injury, civil procedure ## Key issues - When a counteraffidavit challenges only part of the medical charges in a Section 18.001 affidavit, the unchallenged portions remain competent evidence and may go to the jury, with the controverted portions redacted. - A counteraffidavit attesting that a portion of the charges is reasonable is likewise admissible to support that portion of the claim. ## Factual History Tatia Ortiz sued Ramu Nelapatla for injuries she says she suffered in a car accident in a Target parking lot in McKinney as both were backing out of parking spaces (Opinion, PDF p. 2). To prove the reasonableness and necessity of her medical treatment, Ortiz served Section 18.001 affidavits from three providers: $2,210 in services from Addison Interventional Pain, and charges from LifeSciences Imaging and Synergy Sports Rehabilitation (Opinion, PDF p. 2). Nelapatla served two counteraffidavits, one from a medical billing expert challenging LifeSciences' charges as exceeding usual and customary costs by $1,475.46 and one from a chiropractor challenging $3,465 of Synergy's services, and both attested that the remaining costs were reasonable and necessary (Opinion, PDF p. 3). ## Procedural History Ortiz supplemented her disclosures by designating the two counteraffiants as experts and attaching their counteraffidavits, but at the pretrial hearing Nelapatla objected to admitting her affidavits from LifeSciences and Synergy, and at trial the court sustained his objections to those bills and affidavits and refused the counteraffidavits as hearsay, leaving only the unchallenged $2,210 affidavit in evidence (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). The jury awarded $2,210 in past medical expenses and the court rendered judgment on the verdict and overruled Ortiz's motion for a new trial on damages (Opinion, PDF p. 4). A divided Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas) affirmed, holding the compliant counteraffidavits made Ortiz's affidavits insufficient without expert testimony and that the counteraffidavits were inadmissible hearsay (Opinion, PDF pp. 4-6). The vehicle in this Court is a petition for review filed by Ortiz, argued October 7, 2025, and decided May 1, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 6, 17). Justice Hawkins did not participate (Opinion, PDF p. 1). ## Issues Presented Ortiz presents two issues (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 10): whether the court of appeals properly interpreted Section 18.001 in holding that a counteraffidavit controverting only part of her claimed expenses required expert testimony to prove the uncontroverted portion, and whether it properly interpreted the statute in affirming the exclusion of the counteraffidavits. The Court framed the question as what to do when a counteraffidavit only partially challenges the costs identified in the initial affidavit (Opinion, PDF p. 2). ## Standard(s) of Review Evidentiary rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion, and excluding evidence without a valid legal basis is an abuse of discretion, including when a court misapplies Section 18.001 (Opinion, PDF p. 6). ## Legal Arguments **Whether a partially controverted affidavit may be admitted.** **Ortiz (Petitioner):** A trial court abuses its discretion if it fails to apply a statutory requirement properly, and the court of appeals ignored the undefined statutory term "controverted"; under the plain meaning of the verb, evidence offered in a compliant affidavit should be admitted when uncontroverted, and the Legislature enacted affidavits to lower the cost of proving expenses that are not disputed (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 15; Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 18; Reply Brief (Petitioner), PDF p. 6). **Nelapatla (Respondent):** The lower courts correctly applied the statute's plain meaning, because once compliant counteraffidavits were served Ortiz's affidavits were no longer sufficient and were inadmissible hearsay, Ortiz presented only one admissible affidavit and no expert testimony, and she advocates a new construction of multiple statutory terms (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF pp. 10, 13; Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 15). **Whether the counteraffidavits could be offered by Ortiz.** **Ortiz (Petitioner):** She could offer Nelapatla's counteraffidavits as evidence of what portion of the expenses was undisputed and reasonable (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 10). **Nelapatla (Respondent):** The trial court properly excluded his counteraffidavits under Section 18.001 and the hearsay rules when Ortiz offered them as evidence of undisputed expenses (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 10). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case Ortiz argued that the court of appeals' interpretation of Section 18.001 wrongly required expert testimony to prove the uncontroverted portion of her expenses and undermines the statute's efficiency purpose (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 10, 15). ## Practice Area Tags personal-injury, civil-procedure ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas) after a jury trial; argued October 7, 2025, and decided May 1, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 6, 17). ## Amicus Involvement - [Texas Association of Defense Counsel](https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=b78667c1-a3b9-47bd-8e9a-261416a5ebe3&coa=cossup&DT=BRIEFS&MediaID=7d134ab7-896a-4cc0-831e-9cdaea173b4b) supports Nelapatla: the affidavit exception must not shift the burden of proof to an opponent who disputes the charges. - [John T. Kirtley, III, et al.](https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=73432318-5891-47c1-a140-77779774e964&coa=cossup&DT=BRIEFS&MediaID=2a01b84d-e41c-4c46-b738-ad0ef1c153ad) support Ortiz: the court of appeals undermined the statute's framework and made an efficiency statute inefficient. - The Texas Trial Lawyers Association filed an [amicus brief](https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=067b3d50-9486-4f38-91d5-5683c1b2bc8b&coa=cossup&DT=BRIEFS&MediaID=20cf1130-4ffe-483c-b903-ae870f99f5ad) at the petition stage. ## Holding Section 18.001 affidavits may be partially controverted, and a partially controverted affidavit may not be excluded from evidence in its entirety solely because portions are controverted: the unchallenged portions remain competent evidence and may go to the jury, with controverted portions redacted, and a counteraffidavit that affirmatively attests what portion of an expense is reasonable is admissible to support that portion (Opinion, PDF pp. 2, 9-15, 17). ## Court's Reasoning **The statutory scheme.** Before Section 18.001, reasonableness of medical expenses could be proven only by expert testimony even when undisputed, and the Legislature created the affidavit procedure to streamline that proof (Opinion, PDF pp. 6-7). An uncontroverted affidavit is sufficient but not conclusive evidence, and when a compliant counteraffidavit challenges an expense the affidavit is no longer sufficient as to the controverted amount and expert testimony is required (Opinion, PDF p. 8). **Partial controversion.** A counteraffiant may challenge "all or part" of the matters, and a compliant counteraffidavit that controverts only part renders the initial affidavit insufficient as to the controverted claims but not inadmissible in its entirety, as the statute repeatedly refers to offering both affidavits and counteraffidavits in evidence and anticipates redacted bills (Opinion, PDF pp. 9-10). A claimant served with such a counteraffidavit may opt out and use expert testimony, rely on the statute for the uncontroverted claims and use experts for the rest, or abandon the controverted claims, but if he relies on the partially controverted affidavit he must redact the controverted costs (Opinion, PDF p. 11). **Application.** The trial court erred by refusing to admit Ortiz's affidavits in their entirety, and she should have been permitted to submit the uncontested portions, such as the Synergy services found necessary and the LifeSciences services found necessary with $9,774.54 of the charges attested reasonable (Opinion, PDF pp. 12-13, 15-16). A counteraffidavit is admissible when it attests to what portion of an expense is reasonable, because the statute expressly contemplates both being offered by a "party," and the exclusion was harmful because Ortiz was left with no evidence of those costs (Opinion, PDF pp. 13-16). **Dissent.** Justice Sullivan would hold that once a compliant counteraffidavit controverts an affidavit, the statute no longer permits using that affidavit, because the unless clause speaks of the admissibility of "affidavits," not of individual claims (Sullivan, J., dissenting, PDF pp. 1-2). ## Disposition Court of appeals' judgment reversed and the case remanded to the trial court for further proceedings (Opinion, PDF p. 17). ## Vote Breakdown Justice Lehrmann delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Blacklock and Justices Devine, Busby, Bland, Huddle, and Young (Opinion, PDF p. 1). Justice Sullivan filed a dissenting opinion, and Justice Hawkins did not participate (Opinion, PDF p. 1). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/23-0953. 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.