The Texas Supreme Court has granted a hospital management company’s motion for an emergency stay while it considers the company’s petition for writ of mandamus in a discovery dispute.
In re HCA Management Services, L.P. (No. 25-0872; granted October 3, 2025) arose from an intoxicated driver crashing her car into the lobby of the North Austin Medical Center in February 2024. The driver had a blood alcohol level of .25, drove from the hospital parking lot, ran over curbs and landscaping, crossed a two-lane road and driveway, avoided concrete columns in front of the ER, and steered her vehicle to crash through the ER doors at 47 mph. Plaintiffs were in the ER at the time of the crash. They sued the hospital and eight other Austin-area hospitals for failing to install military-grade bollards or security barriers at the entrance to the ER. Plaintiff’s served HCA Management, which provides consulting and advisory services to HCA’s hospitals nationwide (including nine St. David’s Austin-area hospitals), with subpoenas seeking a corporate representative deposition and more than 30 categories of documents related to vehicle-intrusion and vehicle-pedestrian incidents and information about use or recommended use of bollards at any HCA-affiliated entities nationwide.
HCA Management and St. David’s objected and filed motions to quash. HCA Management further filed an affidavit explaining the burden imposed by the requested discovery. After a hearing, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Issuance of Letters Rogatory, seeking similar nationwide discovery from non-party HCA Healthcare, a Tennessee company (over which the court had no jurisdiction, so it couldn’t object). In September the trial court overruled Defendants’ objections and ordered the discovery by October 10 (less than a month from the date of the orders). HCA Management Services filed a petition for writ of mandamus and motion for emergency stay. SCOTX granted the stay pending consideration of the petition. The issue before SCOTX is whether the trial court abused its discretion by ordering irrelevant, overbroad and unduly burdensome nationwide non-party discovery not proportionate to the needs of the case.
We have seen a lot of discovery abuses of this type go up to SCOTX but can’t remember any quite as outrageous as this one. At the very least, we are happy that the Court put a stop to it pending further review.
