HOUSTON - A trial court did not abuse its discretion by extending the deadline to file an expert report in a medical practice lawsuit, according to an opinion issued by the 14th Court of Appeals yesterday.
Court records show that on Aug. 30, 2019, Allison Turner Hall filed this suit against Dr. Oluwatosin Ajao, alleging negligence over treatment received in June of 2017. On Feb. 9, 2021, the trial court denied Ajao’s motion to dismiss and granted Hall’s second amended motion to modify the deadline to file the expert report. Ajao appealed.
According to Ajao’s appellate brief, on Dec. 9, 2019, she timely filed her original answer, making Hall’s deadline to serve a Chapter 74 expert report April 7, 2020. On April 3, 2020, four days before the deadline, Hall filed her first motion for extension of time to file the expert report, citing the Texas Supreme Court’s Eight Emergency Order that was filed on April 2, 2020. Hall argued that the deadline to serve Chapter 74 Expert Reports had been automatically tolled until June 1, 2020.
On appeal, Ajao argued Hall failed to provide evidence that COVID-19 was the cause of her failure to secure an expert report, and that the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion to dismiss, which asserted Hall failed to timely serve Chapter 74 Expert Reports.
In its opinion, the 14th Court agreed with the First Court of Appeals’ holding that “we must construe the COVID-19 Emergency Orders according to their plain terms, and those terms authorize a trial court to modify an expert-report deadline.”
“The Emergency Orders do not condition a deadline extension on evidence that COVID-19 affected the claimant’s ability to meet the initial expert-report deadline,” the opinion states. “We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting Hall’s motion to extend the expert-report deadline or in denying Ajao’s motion to dismiss.”
Appeals case No. 14-21-00123-CV