The Austin Court of Appeals has reversed a summary judgment in favor of a physician and hospital in a wrongful death action alleging medical negligence.
The facts of Heather Dawn Williams, Individually and as Wrongful Death Beneficiary and Representative of The Estate of Leilani Wittkohl, Deceased v. CTRH, L.L.C., d/b/a Central Texas Rehabilitation Hospital; and Supriya Ailnani, M.D. (No. 03-22-00465-CV; January 5, 2024) are as follows. Plaintiff’s mother, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and diabetes mellitus, was admitted to the hospital for rehabilitation. Plaintiff alleged that her treating physician, Dr. Ailnani, made certain changes in the type and dosage of her insulin a few days after her admission. About 10 days after her admission, plaintiff was found unresponsive with low blood sugar levels and died shortly thereafter.
Plaintiff sued the physician and hospital, asserting negligence. She alleged that the physician and hospital staff failed to monitor the decedent’s blood sugar levels after changing her insulin regime, that the physician should not have increased her dosage of one type of insulin and discontinued another type, and that the physician failed to administer or order “appropriate fasting” of decedent’s blood sugar before changing her insulin dosage. Defendants filed a no-evidence motion for summary judgment on the issue of causation, alleging that the plaintiff’s expert’s opinions were unreliable and inadmissible, and moved to strike. The trial court granted the motion to strike and entered summary judgment for defendants. Plaintiff appealed.
The court of appeals reversed and remanded. The issue came down to the reliability of the expert’s opinions. The expert, a specialist in general internal medicine, opined that decedent died from cardiac arrest caused by hypoglycemia resulting from the failure to monitor her blood sugar. He based his opinion on copies of decedent’s medical records, a police report, copies of a “Medical Opinion” from “Record Reform” (a medical records review company), and a copy of the death certificate. He also reviewed a medical discharge summary prepared by another physician reporting that when discovered decedent still had a pulse and her blood sugar level measured in the 20s. (The physician later filed an affidavit retracting his assertion that decedent still had a pulse, as it was based on hearsay from an unidentified source.) Defendants argued that, in the absence of the medical discharge summary, the evidence did not show that plaintiff was still alive when her blood sugar level was measured, rendering the expert’s opinion unreliable. The court disagreed, holding that the expert’s reliance on the initial discharge summary constituted “some” evidence to support his opinions, which was sufficient to defeat summary judgment. The court thus remanded to a Travis County district court for further proceedings.
