HOUSTON - A man who once scored an eight-figure medical malpractice verdict in Harris County has struck out on his effort to collect the full amount.
The 14th Court of Appeals on Nov. 26 ruled against Andre McCoy after he sought to hold the former members of Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates liable for a 2013 $10.6 million verdict.
The case involved the late Shannon McCoy's 2004 miscarriage and subsequent treatment. She suffered brain damage that required 24-hour care until her death, leading Andre McCoy to sue OGA and Dr. Debra Gunn.
OGA was found vicariously liable for Gunn, but the company folded and couldn't pay the full verdict. McCoy went back to court in 2020 to sue the former members of the practice but has now been denied in both the Harris County Probate Court and the 14th Court of Appeals.
He has argued a veil-piercing theory tracing to reorganization of OGA and violations of the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act. Some of the physicians had moved their practices to a new business - Southwest Women's Health Alliance.
Before that, they switched OGA from a professional association to a professional limited liability company.
"(McCoy) does not say why this would be an abuse of OGA's corporate form; as mentioned above, conversion has no effect on a company's liabilities," Justice Frances Bourliot wrote.
"Moreover, McCoy's temporal arrangement of events is not possible, because the conversion predates the malpractice judgment."
Shannon McCoy went to a hospital in September 2004 while 37 weeks pregnant. She was experiencing severe abdominal pain, while her child had died due to placental abruption.
Gunn decided that McCoy would deliver the stillborn baby through a vaginal birth but she was suffering from a blood-clotting disorder known as DIC. She continued to lose blood, underwent a hysterectomy and had her heart stop pumping blood, leading to brain damage and seizures.
Andre McCoy sued her OB-GYN Gunn and OGA, where she had been seen earlier that day. The 14th Court of Appeals previously had affirmed the verdict against them with a small remittitur.
The doctors McCoy sued filed counterclaims against him, with all but two being dropped. Their cases are pending.
"The confusion arises from McCoy's mistaken assumption that OGA, P.A., and OGA, P.L.L.C. are different companies, when in fact, they are different organizational forms of the same company," Bourliot wrote in a footnote.