Opinion ID: 3008300
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Artful Pleading

Text: This Court, as did the trial court and the court of appeals, concludes that Marks’s first three allegations of negligence are health care liability claims under the Medical Liability and Insurance Improvement Act (MLIIA). See former Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. art. 4590i § 1.03(a )( 4). 1 That conclusion requires dismissal of Marks’s suit entirely because the fourth allegation—that the bed was negligently assembled, maintained, and provided—is based on the same facts and the same damages as the first three. The Court has previously held that when a cause of action is essentially a health care liability claim and a timely expert report has not been served, the claim should be dismissed in its entirety regardless of how the claim is pled. That should occur here. In Diversicare General Partner, Inc. v. Rubio the concurring and dissenting justices concluded that the victim of a sexual assault at a nursing home asserted a premises liability claim against the nursing home independent of her health care liability claim. 185 S.W.3d 842, 857-58 (Tex. 2005) (Jefferson, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id. at 861-66 (O’Neill, J., dissenting). The Court rejected that view because it “would open the door to splicing health care liability claims into a multitude of other causes of action with standards of care, damages, and procedures contrary to the Legislature’s explicit requirements. It is well settled that such artful pleading and recasting of claims is not permitted.” Id. at 854; see also Murphy v. Russell , 167 S.W.3d 835, 838 (Tex. 2005) (“[A] claimant cannot escape the Legislature’s statutory scheme by artful pleading.”); Garland Cmty . Hosp. v. Rose , 156 S.W.3d 541, 543 (Tex. 2004) (“Plaintiffs cannot use artful pleading to avoid the MLIIA’s requirements when the essence of the suit is a health care liability claim.”). I would adhere to the Court’s holding and reaffirm the language the Court used in Diversicare and other cases rejecting claim-splitting by pleadings. Otherwise, the door will be opened to manipulated, inventive, and artful pleadings designed to avoid the MLIIA requirements and limitations. By failing to address the claim-splitting aspect of this situation, the plurality’s opinion may create uncertainty in the bench and bar as to whether claim-splitting is permissible. And such uncertainty almost assuredly will lead to more extended and expensive trial and appellate court proceedings to determine whether a patient’s pleadings assert health care liability claims, non-health care liability claims, or both; and if both, which is which. Extended proceedings and associated increased costs, including economic settlements to avoid litigation expense, are a significant part of what the Legislature intended to avoid through enactment of the MLIIA. See Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. art. 4590i, § 1.02(b )( 2); 2 see also id. § 1.02(b )( 1). The Court should make clear it is not abandoning its position that when the substance of a patient’s claim for damages comes within the statutory definition of a health care liability claim, then the MLIIA applies to all the plaintiff’s claims against the health care provider based on that injury. Here, no matter how Marks pleaded his case, the substantive facts are that his injury arises from a health care liability claim and he should not be allowed to avoid application of the MLIIA by finding another way to plead his claim for damages.