HOUSTON — A Texas appeals court has denied an appeal by Memorial Hermann-Katy Hospital and other defendants in their challenging of a trial court's 90-day extension given to supplement expert reports used by a woman alleging she lost her vision due to the negligence of the hospital's emergency room staff.
According to the Aug. 29 State of Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals filing, the appellants Memorial Hermann Health System doing business as Memorial Hermann-Katty Hospital, physicians Mikael Lucas, Randolph Whitford and Eyes Over Texas Eye Care filed the appeal challenging the qualifications of Dr. David Tasker, one of the appellee, Donnie Heinzen's, experts. The defendants also challenge the three, 30-day extensions given to Heinzen by the trial court to supplement her experts' reports.
Heinzen, who was diagnosed with angle-closure glaucoma, sought treatment at Memorial Hermann-Katy's emergency room when she began to have severe eye pain. In Dr. Tasker's report he noted that Heinzen's vision damage "increased each hour" that her condition was left untreated which led to the loss of her vision field.
"We conclude that Dr. Tasker not only adequately explained the role of an ophthalmologist, but also sufficiently described the care that an emergency-room physician must render while awaiting an ophthalmologist’s evaluation, and which Dr. Lucas failed to perform," Justice Tracy Christopher wrote in the court's opinion.
"Dr. Tasker’s reports causally link the failure of Memorial Hermann’s nursing staff to properly document Heinzen’s primary complaint, to the delay in her diagnosis and treatment, and then to her resulting vision loss," Justice Christopher wrote.
The court affirmed the trial court's overruling of the defendants' objection to Dr. Tasker's first and supplemental expert reports and the denial of the defendants' motion to dismiss.