The Tyler Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court order denying a hospital’s motion to dismiss a health care liability claim for a deficient expert report.
Quitman Hospital, LLC d/b/a UT Health Quitman v. W.S., A Minor by Duane Stuart, ANF (No. 12-24-00313; February 28, 2025) arose from a false imprisonment claim filed against Quitman. The 15-year-old Plaintiff was brought to the hospital with a head laceration and a high blood alcohol level. Plaintiff statede that he drank an unidentified substance that tasted like hand sanitizer and subsequently fainted in the shower, hitting his head. At the hospital, Plaintiff said that he did not care of he died. The ER physician placed him on suicide watch and recommended against immediate discharge over his parents’ objection. Plaintiff was discharged the next day against medical advice. Plaintiff subsequently filed suit against the hospital for false imprisonment, alleging mental anguish damages. Plaintiff ended up serving three expert reports, which the trial court found sufficient when “taken together.” The court denied the hospital’s motion to dismiss. The hospital sought interlocutory relief.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Worthen, the court of appeals affirmed. First, the court found that one of the reports, which came from a registered nurse, did not satisfy the statutory requirements because a nurse is “neither an expert nor is qualified to render an expert opinion regarding causation.” That left two reports by the same physician. These reports opined that the hospital breached the standard of care to treat a potential psychiatric patient by the least restrictive means, and that Plaintiff “suffered significant humiliation and psychological trauma from this very severe breach of his rights as a patient[.]” The reports further asserted that Plaintiff will suffer “negative effects on his ability to trust therapists and providers that he needs both now and, in the future, to help him with the psycho stressors in his life.” The reports concluded that had the hospital followed the standard of care, it wold have discharged Plaintiff immediately after sewing up the cut on his head. Based on these opinions, the court determined that the trial court “could have reasonably determined that [the physician’s] report represented a good-faith effort to summarize the causal relationship between [the hospital’s] failure to meet the applicable standard of care and [Plaintiff’s] injuries and damages.”
Chief Justice Worthen pointed out, however, that the expert report requirement “is a low initial threshold intended to deter frivolous claims, not to dispose of claims regardless of their merit.” He observed further that “the report could have provided a more robust discussion of [the physician’s] opinion on the causal relationship between [the hospital’s] breach and [Plaintiff’s] harm.” While this decision was a “close call with respect to causation, ‘[c]lose calls must go to the trial court’” (citation omitted).
We can certainly see it from the court of appeals’ point of view, but even still, it’s hard to believe that a responsible physician or hospital would do anything differently under these facts. After hearing Plaintiff’s statement, the doctor was ethically (and probably legally) required to act on it, come what may. It seems likely that if another plaintiff in a similar situation was immediately discharged and subsequently committed an act of self-harm, the provider would be sued for not holding the plaintiff. This Catch-22 will probably come out in trial, if the case gets that far, but the hospital cannot help but feel this result is hard to swallow.
