On Sept. 27, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay order in the case of Dr. Ximena Lopez versus the Children's Medical Center at Dallas. The case was previously set for trial on October 12, 2023.
The original lawsuit was filed on May 10, 2022, by plaintiff Ximena Lopez, M.D. in the Dallas County Circuit Court against Children's Medical Center at Dallas. Dr. Lopez is the founder of Children's Health's pediatric transgender wing, known as the GENder Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) clinic. She has been operating the clinic since 2014 until November of 2021, when Children's and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) ordered her to stop offering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to new patients with gender dysphoria.
In her lawsuit, Dr. Lopez accuses Children's and UTSW of violating the prohibition against the corporate practice of medicine, modifying or restricting her staff privileges without due process, discriminating against new patients based on gender identity, compelling her to engage in discrimination, and constituting an illegal restraint of trade.
In response to the lawsuit, the defendants claimed that Dr. Lopez's original petition lacks specificity in terms of both legal and factual foundations for these claims. They claimed that she failed to adequately identify relevant statutes, regulations, or legal authorities supporting her claims or specify the factual basis for many of her allegations. The defendants argued that they have the right to know the precise legal and factual grounds for Dr. Lopez's claims so that they could adequately respond to them.
On June 2, 2023, Dr. Lopez filed an amended petition asserting additional "causes for action," including claims that Children’s conspired to violate the prohibition on the corporate practice of medicine, that Children's engaged in unlawful conspiracy to discriminate because of sex, tortious interference with prospective relations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Dr. Lopez filed a second amended petition on June 21, 2023 repeating these causes of action.
In response, the defense argued that Dr. Lopez's causes for action lack a legal and factual basis and that they lack a valid underlying cause of action. Additionally, her claim of infliction of emotional distress lacks essential elements. The defense argued that a writ of mandamus should be granted because Children’s lacks an adequate remedy at law and that the trial court abused its discretion in denying Children’s motion to dismiss Dr. Lopez's causes for action pursuant to Texas law.