Opinion ID: 3008271
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Assaults and the TMLA

Text: The elements of a civil assault mirror those of a criminal assault. See Waffle House, Inc. v. Williams, 313 S.W.3d 796, 801 n.4 (Tex. 2010). Under the Penal Code, an assault occurs if a person: (1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another, including the person’s spouse; (2) intentionally or knowingly threatens another with imminent bodily injury, including the person’s spouse; or (3) intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative. TEX . PENAL CODE § 22.01(a). As relevant to the case before us, an assault occurs if a person “intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative.” Id. § 22.01(a)(3). Distinguishing between claims to which the TMLA applies and those to which it does not apply can be difficult when the plaintiff alleges an assault took place during a physical examination to which the patient consented. The scope of medical examinations generally are informed, and largely guided, by a combination of the patient’s complaints and the examiner’s training and professional judgment. During an examination for the purpose of diagnosing or treating a patient’s condition, a medical or health care provider almost always will touch the patient intentionally. Frequently, examinations involve examiners touching the patient’s body in places and in ways that 9 would be assaults were it not for the actual or implied consent of the patient in the context of the medical or health care relationship. And the examiner may need to examine parts of the patient’s body that might not be anticipated by a person without medical or health care training. Such a situation is demonstrated by Vanderwerff, a case in which no expert report was filed. There, Kristina Beathard sought treatment from Eric Vanderwerff, a chiropractor, complaining of pain in various parts of her body. 239 S.W.3d at 407. Beathard later sued Vanderwerff, alleging that “during the course of a routine examination of her knee” he rubbed her genitals. Id. at 409. The trial court denied Vanderwerff’s motion to dismiss for Beathard’s failure to serve an expert report, but the court of appeals reversed. Id. In doing so, it noted that Beathard had marked an anatomical drawing to show her areas of pain, and those markings indicated she was having pain not only in her neck, wrists, ankle, and left knee, but also running from her knee to her upper thigh. Id. The court of appeals set out the issue and its conclusion as follows: The threshold questions raised by Beathard’s pleadings are whether she consented to treatment and whether Vanderwerff’s examination was within the scope of a chiropractic examination. Was the examination a “routine” examination as Beathard contends? These questions cannot be answered without reference to the standard of care required of a chiropractic provider. Id. In essence, the court of appeals recognized that an expert report was necessary because Vanderwerff’s conduct in the overall context of the chiropractic examination could have been part of the care he was rendering pursuant to Beathard’s consent to be examined and treated for pain which, in part, she reported extended from her knee to the upper thigh. In balancing the respective rights of and burdens on claimants and medical and healthcare defendants, the Legislature has determined that requiring claimants to bear the expense of obtaining 10 and serving expert reports early in HCLCs is preferable to having parties incur substantial expense and devote considerable time to developing claims through discovery and trial preparation before a trial court determines which ones are meritless. See Scoresby, 346 S.W.3d at 552, 556; Palacios, 46 S.W.3d at 877. However, we fail to see how the Legislature could have intended the requirement of an expert report to apply under circumstances where the conduct of which a plaintiff complains is wholly and conclusively inconsistent with, and thus separable from, the rendition of “medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care” even though the conduct occurred in a health care context. See TEX . CIV . PRAC. & REM . CODE § 74.001(a)(13); see also TEX . GOV ’T CODE § 311.021 (“In enacting a statute, it is presumed that . . . a just and reasonable result is intended . . . .”). We conclude that a claim against a medical or health care provider for assault is not an HCLC if the record conclusively shows that (1) there is no complaint about any act of the provider related to medical or health care services other than the alleged offensive contact, (2) the alleged offensive contact was not pursuant to actual or implied consent by the plaintiff, and (3) the only possible relationship between the alleged offensive contact and the rendition of medical services or healthcare was the setting in which the act took place. See Murphy v. Russell, 167 S.W.3d 835, 838