Medical Liability—The SCOTX Report

23-0317·Petition For Review

Leibman v. Waldroup

Parents' negligence claims against a physician whose letters described a patient's "service animals" are not health care liability claims requiring an expert report, because the alleged failure to ascertain a dog's temperament toward strangers is not a departure from accepted standards of medical care, no medical expert is needed to prove the standard of care, breach or causation, and any presumption that the claim is a health care liability claim is inapplicable or rebutted.
The plaintiffs, who were strangers to the physician-patient relationship, had standing at the pleading stage, since their allegations reasonably traced the dog attack in part to the doctor's letters, which emboldened the owner to bring the dog into public places.

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23-0460·Petition For Review

Bush v. Columbia Med. Ctr. of Arlington Subsidiary, L.P.

medical liability

An amended expert report is an adequate good-faith "fair summary" against a hospital under the Texas Medical Liability Act where it explains how the hospital's failure to adopt policies such as a "Triple Rule Out" protocol foreseeably led to a missed pulmonary embolism and the patient's death; the expert need not explain why the policies would not amount to the corporate practice of medicine or how a physician could be made to follow them.
A court reviewing a report at the threshold stage may not weigh credibility, demand that the expert anticipate and refute every defensive theory, or identify "analytical gaps" that go to the merits, and close calls go to the trial court.

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23-0607·Other

Renaissance Med. Found. v. Lugo

medical liability employment professional liability

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.

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24-0494·Mandamus

In re Brenham Nursing & Rehab. Ctr.

medical liability civil procedure

Whether a nursing home's one-sentence original answer invoking the Pandemic Liability Protection Act defense (Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 74.155) gave the "specific facts" section 74.155(g) requires within its deadline, or only fair notice of the defense.
Whether section 74.155(g)'s deadline is mandatory, so that missing it forfeits the defense and restores the ordinary negligence standard of proof, or merely directory.

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24-0879·Mandamus

In re Lapuerta

medical liability civil procedure

A trial court abused its discretion by ordering a new trial after an 11-1 defense verdict in a finger-amputation malpractice case, because its stated reasons misperceived the law of medical-negligence causation and it may have been influenced by a dissenting juror's improper letter about deliberations.
The Court conditionally granted mandamus and directed the trial court to render judgment on the verdict.

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24-1001·Other

HCA Health Servs. of Tex. Inc. v. Emery

medical liability civil procedure

The Court denied two petitions for review in a health care liability case in which the court of appeals held a plaintiff's incomplete pre-suit medical authorization still tolled limitations for 75 days, and Justice Boyd noted his dissent from the denial without a written opinion.
The petitions asked the Court to clarify Hampton v. Thome's exceptions for authorizations so deficient or bad-faith that they count as no authorization, in a case where the plaintiff listed only her OB/GYN and omitted the bariatric-surgery providers.

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24-1069·Petition For Review

Aldaco v. Wood

medical liability civil procedure

A patient's health care liability claims against her therapist were timely because the two-year limitations period can run from completion of treatment, and her therapy did not end until she was terminated as a patient, within two years of pre-suit notice (unanimous as to that holding).
A four-justice plurality would also hold that "the occurrence of the . . . tort" means when the plaintiff was actually injured, not when the defendant's act happened, even though the Legislature removed the word "accrued" from the statute to abolish the discovery rule; the other Justices did not join that part.

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25-0917·Petition For Review

Oramas v. Utmb Health at Galveston

medical liability civil procedure

The Court denied review of the dismissal of a pro se widow's health care liability claim for missing the Medical Liability Act's 120-day expert-report deadline, but Justice Young (joined by Justices Devine and Busby) urged the Legislature to weigh access to justice, noting she served an expert report only about two months late.
He identified why lawyers likely declined the case (state-hospital immunity, a COVID-19 gross-negligence standard, and a $250,000 damages cap) and hoped the Legislature would prefer merits decisions for good-faith litigants.

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25-1028·Petition For Review

Cantu v. Benavides

medical liability civil procedure

Whether a health care liability plaintiff's expert report, which names the defendant surgeon only once as the person who performed the C-section and otherwise faults "a reasonable institution" and the hospital's employees for a retained surgical sponge, adequately implicates that surgeon's conduct when read as a whole, or is "no report" as to him.
If the report is deficient, whether it was nonetheless a good-faith effort entitling the plaintiff to a chance to amend, and whether the surgeon's months-long delay in objecting forfeited a sufficiency challenge under the 21-day deadline.

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26-0085·Petition For Review

Tex. Tech Univ. Health Sci. Ctr. v. Mohrman

governmental immunity medical liability

Whether the common-law mailbox rule applies to the Tort Claims Act's requirement that a governmental unit "receive" notice within six months, so that proof of mailing creates a fact issue on receipt.
Whether, if the rule does not apply, the case must be remanded for the court of appeals to decide Mohrman's alternative actual-notice ground, which it did not reach.

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26-0231·Petition For Review

Hilton v. Gibbs

medical liability civil procedure

The parties settled their health care liability dispute after the court of appeals ruled, and jointly asked the Supreme Court to implement that settlement under Rule 56.3 rather than review the merits.
The Court granted the agreed petition, vacated the judgments below, and remanded to the trial court to enter judgment on the parties' agreement⁠—the case is now over in this Court.

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