HOUSTON – The Texas 14th Court of Appeals has overturned a Houston lower court’s dismissal of malpractice claims against a local hospital.
In a 24-page opinion written by Justice Frances Bourliot and concurred by justices Charles Spain and Tracy Christopher, the panel determined Harris County District Court “abused its discretion” when it dismissed a lawsuit brought by appellants Aimee Harvey, Amanda Harvey, Henry Wilson III, and Gwendolyn Wilson against appellee Kindred Hospital.
Kindred was sued in response to the death of patient Talisa Phillips, who was treated for respiratory failure and was due for a lung transplant. Phillips’ survivors alleged Kindred was responsible for the decedent perishing from cardiac arrest while she was being transferred to another hospital.
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During the litigation, the appellants served Kindred with two expert reports. The appellee, in turn, objected to the reports and moved to dismiss appellants’ claims.
The lower court approved Kindred’s objections, but allowed the appellants to serve amended expert reports. Kindred Hospital was served a revised report prepared by Dr. Natascha Dumas, which is the subject of the appeal.
The opinion disagreed with Kindred’s argument that Dumas is not qualified to comment on the standard of care for its health care partners.
“We conclude that Dumas’ expert report establishes that she is qualified to opine on the standards of care applicable to Kindred’s nurses and other healthcare providers,” the opinion stated. “She is also qualified to opine on the issues in this case, which involve acute respiratory acidosis and cardiac arrest.”
Kindred’s assertion that Dumas did not adequately address standards of care, breach and causation in her expert report as to each health care provider was also refuted in the opinion.
“Dumas’ expert report represents an objective good faith effort to comply with the statutory requirements for an expert report for four reasons: (1) Dumas is qualified to opine on the standards of care applicable to Kindred’s nurses and other health care providers; (2) Dumas opined that the same standard of care was applicable to all the involved health care providers and provided adequate detail to provide Kindred with notice of what the standard of care was; (3) Dumas explained that none of the health care providers involved in Phillips’ care complied with the standard of care requiring them to follow the orders of the physician in charge, and she explained in detail why such failure was a breach of the standard of care; and (4) Dumas fairly summarized the causal relationship between the failure of the healthcare providers to follow the orders of the physician in charge and Phillips’s injuries,” Bourliot wrote.
The appeals court also remands the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.
Texas 14th Court of Appeals case number 14-17-00479-CV