Court Opinion

ID: 9386963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-14 07:10:36.205389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:10.192021
License: Public Domain

In The

                         Court of Appeals

            Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont

                         __________________

                        NO. 09-21-00067-CV
                         __________________

                    JUSTIN BOTTS, Appellant

                                  V.

                    FARWAH NAQVI, Appellee

__________________________________________________________________

            On Appeal from the 284th District Court
                  Montgomery County, Texas
                 Trial Cause No. 19-08-10813-CV
__________________________________________________________________

                    MEMORANDUM OPINION

     Justin Botts appeals and argues the trial court erred in granting

the defendant’s no-evidence motion for summary judgment and in

denying his motion requesting a continuance on the motion. On appeal,

Botts argues the trial court erred in rendering a take-nothing judgment

on his claims because a medical record, which he attached to his

summary-judgment response, “provided more than a scintilla of

                                  1
evidence” to prove that his injuries had been proximately caused by the

defendant’s negligence. Alternatively, Botts argues that because the

discovery of the opinions of the expert witnesses expected to testify about

whether his injuries were caused by the defendant’s negligence was

incomplete when the trial court granted the defendant’s no-evidence

motion, the trial court committed error by denying his motion to continue

the hearing.

     Concluding no error occurred, we will affirm.

                               Background

     While driving a vehicle in a private parking lot in Montgomery

County in March 2018, Farwah Naqvi turned in front of Justin Botts and

their vehicles collided. Over a year later, in August 2019, Botts sued

Farwah and Shahzeb Naqvi, the owner of the vehicle she was driving, on

theories of negligence and negligent entrustment. In Botts’s Original

Petition, his live pleading for the purposes of this appeal, Botts alleged

the collision caused him “serious physical and neurological injuries.”1

     1Botts’s  petition doesn’t include a claim for any of the damages, if
any, the collision may have caused to his vehicle. Also, on November 12,
2019, Botts filed a notice to nonsuit Shahzeb Naqvi. The trial court’s clerk
or the court stamped the nonsuit “GRANTED,” and under the stamp, the
                                      2
     In September 2019 and on its own initiative, the trial court signed

the first of what ultimately proved to be a series of three Docket Control

Orders. The initial Docket Control Order established discovery and

pleadings deadlines, expert-witness identification and designation

deadlines, and placed the case on the trial court’s two-week-rolling docket

beginning July 6, 2020. 2 In bold print, the initial and each subsequent

Docket Control Order contains language stating: “Experts not listed in

compliance with this paragraph will not be permitted to testify

absent a showing of an exception under Rule 193.6.” 3 The Clerk’s

Record doesn’t show the parties objected to the deadlines established by

the trial court’s Docket Control Orders. And when the deadline by which

Botts was required to name his experts in the first of the Docket Control

Orders expired, Botts had not designated any experts.

trial court signed the notice to indicate the trial court’s approval of the
nonsuit as to Shahzeb.
      2See Tex. R. Civ. P. 190.4(a) (authorizing trial courts “on their own

initiative to order that discovery be conducted in accordance with a
discovery control plan tailored to the circumstances of the specific suit”).
      3The first sentence of the paragraph required the parties to list the

expert’s name, address, telephone number the subject of the expert’s
testimony, and the opinions that would be proffered by each expert.
                                      3
     In May 2020, Botts and Farwah filed an agreed motion, asking the

trial court to continue the case, representing to the court that they had

“not yet completed written discovery, depositions, or had ample time to

attempt to resolve their dispute via mediation.” The trial court granted

the motion, signed an Amended Docket Control Order (the second in the

series), and placed the case on its trial docket for the two-week period

beginning November 2, 2020. The second Docket Control Order gave the

parties new and later deadlines by which they were to identify and

designate their expert witnesses. Yet once again, Botts didn’t designate

any expert witness by the expert-witness deadline in the second Docket

Control Order.

     So in October 2020, the parties asked the trial court to continue the

November 2020 trial setting, representing in a motion for continuance

they needed more time to “conduct depositions of the Parties’ respective

experts, explore the possibility of settlement, and if settlement is

unsuccessful, to complete discovery and prepare for trial.” The trial court

granted the motion, signing the last in the series of the three Docket

Control Orders it issued in Botts’s case. Among other things, in its Docket

Control Order of October 2020, the trial court placed the case on its two-

                                    4
week-rolling docket beginning April 5, 2021. The third Docket Control

Order also gave the parties new deadlines to identify and designate their

expert witnesses, making November 6, 2020, the expert-witness deadline

that applied to Botts.

     On December 3, 2020, Farwah filed a no-evidence motion for

summary judgment. When Farwah moved for summary judgment, the

case had been on file for approximately sixteen months. Additionally,

over that sixteen-month period before Farwah filed the motion, the trial

court had given the parties two continuances in a case where Botts had

failed to name his expert witnesses by the deadlines the trial court

established in the three Docket Control Orders it had issued in the suit.

     On December 16, 2020, Botts filed a Designation of Expert

Witnesses, for the first time designating experts. But he didn’t designate

any doctors by name. Instead, he listed thirty healthcare entities as non-

retained experts. In his Designation of Experts, Botts represented he

received medical treatment from these thirty healthcare providers, and

in his Designation, he stated these providers “may be asked to provide

their opinion(s) and mental impression(s)” about the “causation of [his]

injuries, and/or the extent of [his] alleged damages.” The Designation

                                    5
Botts filed, however, didn’t include the names or addresses of any of

Botts’s physicians who treated Botts when he was seen by the facilities

listed in Botts’s designation, nor did he reveal the substance of the

opinions of either the facilities or the healthcare providers who worked

there.

     As to the substance of Farwah’s no-evidence motion for summary

judgment, she alleged that Botts couldn’t prove the physical and

neurological injuries he allegedly suffered “were proximately caused by

the auto collision in question.” Farwah’s no-evidence motion alleges that

Botts has no expert testimony to tie his alleged injuries—which according

to Botts’s petition range from seizures and headaches to cervical and

lumbar radiculopathy—to the collision between their vehicles that

occurred in March 2018.

     On December 29, 2020, Botts responded to Farwah’s no-evidence

motion. In his response, Botts stated that he “does not dispute that expert

testimony will be required to prove that [his] injuries were proximately

caused by the motor vehicle collision with the Defendant.” Botts attached

two exhibits to his motion to support his response: (1) a copy of the

Designation of Expert Witnesses, which he filed in the case just two

                                    6
weeks before; and (2) medical records obtained by subpoena from United

Neurology. The records of United Neurology consist of a report from Dr.

Diamchid Lotfi, and it shows he saw Botts once at United Neurology’s

offices in February 2019. Dr. Lotfi’s two-page report shows that Dr. Lotfi

took Botts’s history and examined him. According to the report, Dr. Lotfi

evaluated Botts “for post traumatic brain concussion, to rule out cervical

spine and lumbar spine radiculopathy, seizure disorder.” The

neurological evaluation Dr. Lotfi performed on Botts was essentially

normal.

     Dr. Lotfi’s report neither includes a diagnosis, nor does it contain

Dr. Lotfi’s opinion about whether Dr. Lotfi thought the symptoms Botts

reported to him in February 2019 were related in reasonable medical

probability to the March 2018 collision. The report concludes with Dr.

Lotfi’s recommendations that Botts undergo additional tests, take

ibuprofen for neck and back pain, and apply anti-inflammatory cream to

his neck and back for pain.

     In granting Farwah’s no-evidence motion, the trial court concluded

Botts failed to meet his burden to prove that an issue of material fact

existed on Botts’s claim the March 2018 collision caused the injuries

                                    7
Botts was claiming to have suffered based on the allegations in the

petition he filed in the suit. In its order denying the motion, the trial court

also denied Botts’s request to continue the case. As previously mentioned,

when the trial court denied the request to continue the hearing on the

motion for summary judgment, the trial court had previously granted two

continuances, both on representations by the parties that they needed

more time to depose experts. What is more, Botts had failed to timely

designate any expert witnesses under the last Docket Control Order that

applied to the discovery of experts in his case.

      After the trial court granted Farwah’s no-evidence motion, Botts

filed a motion for new trial. The trial court denied the motion and Botts

appealed.

                            Standard of Review

      We apply a de novo standard to review rulings granting motions for

summary judgment. 4 In no-evidence motions, the motion must allege

that no evidence supports one or more of the essential elements of a

party’s claim. 5 Thus, the motion must state “the elements as to which

      4Valance  Operating Co. v. Dorsett, 164 S.W.3d 656, 661 (Tex. 2005).
      5Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(i).

                                    8
there is no evidence.” 6 When the motion contains the required no-

evidence allegations, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant to

produce evidence “raising an issue of material fact as to the elements

specified in the motion.” 7 When deciding the no-evidence motion, the trial

court must grant the motion if

     (a) there is a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact, (b)
     the court is barred by rules of law or of evidence from giving
     weight to the only evidence offered to prove a vital fact, (c) the
     evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a mere
     scintilla, or (d) the evidence conclusively establishes the
     opposite of the vital fact. 8

     We review the evidence Botts attached to his response to Farwah’s

no-evidence motion in the light favoring Botts’s claim. 9 The non-movant

raises a genuine issue of material fact by producing “more than a scintilla

of evidence” to establish a material issue or issues of fact exist on the

elements of his claim that have been challenged based on the allegations

in the no-evidence motion. 10 More than a scintilla of evidence exists when

the evidence is such that reasonable and fair-minded people can differ in

     6Id.
     7Mack   Trucks v. Tamez, 206 S.W.3d 572, 582 (Tex. 2003).
     8King  Ranch, Inc. v. Chapman, 118 S.W.3d 742, 751 (Tex. 2003)
(cleaned up).
      9See City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 827 (Tex. 2005).
      10Ford Motor Co. v. Ridgway, 135 S.W.3d 598, 600 (Tex. 2004).

                                      9
their conclusions. 11 But when “the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is

so weak as to do no more than create a mere surmise or suspicion of its

existence, the evidence is no more than a scintilla and, in legal effect, is

no evidence.” 12

                                  Analysis

      In his first issue, Botts argues his medical records provide “more

than a scintilla of evidence” to prove his injuries were caused by Farwah’s

negligence in causing the collision between their vehicles in March 2018.

Botts points to Dr. Lotfi’s report to support his argument, claiming that

in the report Dr. Lotfi drew “a causal connection between Botts’s seizure

disorder” and “the collision by noting specific facts and [by making a]

differential diagnosis[,]” which “specifically referenc[es] the collision[.]”

      As previously mentioned, when in the trial court, Botts specifically

acknowledged that he was required to produce “expert testimony” to

prove his “injuries were proximately caused by the motor vehicle collision

with the Defendant.” As described by Plaintiff’s Original Petition, Botts

alleged the collision caused “Plaintiff to suffer serious physical and

      11Id. at 601.
      12Id. (cleaned up).

                                     10
neurological injuries.” The Original Petition contains no further details

describing Botts’s injuries.

     Botts presumes that Dr. Lotfi’s report contains a diagnosis of

Botts’s injury and that the report ties the injury to the collision of March

2018. We disagree. The report doesn’t contain a diagnosis based on

reasonable medical probability; instead, it merely includes a presumptive

diagnosis based on what Botts reported to Dr. Lotfi about his symptoms,

which is the reason Dr. Lotfi ordered various tests so that the symptoms

and what was causing them could be identified and confirmed or ruled

out. The report does not show what Dr. Lotfi’s opinion might have been

in February 2019 on the question of whether Dr. Lotfi thought Botts’s

symptoms in reasonable medical probability either were or were not

related to the March 2018 collision based on the information Dr. Lotfi

included in his report.

     To be clear, the information Dr. Lotfi’s report contains consists of

Botts’s name, date of birth, age, date of injury, and the date Dr. Lotfi saw

Botts in his office. In addition, the report contains nine sections: (1)

History of Present Illness / Chief Complaint; (2) Drug History; (3) Past

Medical History; (4) Allergies; (5) Social History; (6) Family History; (7)

                                    11
Neurological Evaluation; (8) Impression; and (9) Plan. Under the section

labeled Neurological Evaluation, most of Dr. Lotfi’s findings are reported

as normal, but two signs are reported as abnormal. As to the abnormal

findings, the report states: “Romberg sign is positive. Tandem gait is

abnormal.” The report, however, doesn’t contain an opinion stating that

these two abnormalities are related (or unrelated) to the collision of

March 2018. Stated another way, the report is both silent as to whether

Dr. Lotfi has an opinion about whether the March 18 collision had any

role in causing the two abnormal results he found in examining Botts,

and silent about what could have caused the two abnormalities he found

during the February 2019 exam.

     Under the section of the report labeled Plan, Dr. Lotfi recommended

that Botts undergo an array of cervical and lumbar MRI’s, an MRI of the

brain, EEG’s, a carotid Doppler, EMGs, and blood tests, tests that

included testing Botts’s blood for the presence of a specific drug. Under

the section of the report labeled Impression, Dr. Lotfi wrote: “Evaluation

for post traumatic brain concussion, to rule out cervical spine and lumbar

spine radiculopathy, seizure disorder.”

                                   12
     Boiled down, when viewed in the light most favorable to Botts as

the non-movant, Dr. Lotfi’s report never ties the collision of March 2018

to the symptoms Botts reported to Dr. Lotfi nearly a year later when Dr.

Lotfi saw Botts in his office in February 2019; instead, the report shows

that Dr. Lotfi ordered a number of tests seeking answers to what might

have been causing Botts’s symptoms, questions that might or might not

have been favorable to the claim Botts was making in his lawsuit.

     When a party fails to produce evidence raising a fact issue on the

elements of the claim challenged by a no-evidence motion, the Rules of

Civil Procedure require the trial court to “grant the motion[.]” 13 Because

Dr. Lotfi’s report doesn’t create a fact issue on whether the March 2018

collision caused the serious physical and neurological injuries that Botts

alleged he suffered, the trial court did not err in granting Farwah’s no-

evidence motion. Botts’s first issue is overruled.

     In his second issue, Botts argues the trial court abused its

discretion by denying his motion to continue the hearing on Farwah’s

motion for summary judgment. In his appeal, Botts argues the trial court

should have granted the motion because he did not have an adequate

     13Tex.   R. Civ. P. 166(a)(i).
                                      13
opportunity to conduct expert-witness discovery before the trial court

granted Farwah’s motion. We review a trial court’s determination of

whether the court allowed adequate time for discovery before deciding a

motion for summary judgment for abuse of discretion, and we apply that

standard based on the facts particular to each case. 14

     First, we note the case had been on the trial court’s docket for

seventeen months when the trial court ruled on Farwah’s no-evidence

motion. Thus, the eighteen-month guideline trial courts are directed to

follow in disposing of cases on their dockets was approaching when the

trial court ruled on the motion. Yet the only evidence Botts produced in

response to Farwah’s no-evidence motion was a single report from a

doctor, a doctor who didn’t diagnose the cause of the symptoms Botts

reported and who instead ordered an array of tests so the doctor could

determine whether, with the benefit of the tests, a cause for the

symptoms Botts was complaining about could be defined. Yet when Botts

filed his response to Farwah’s no-evidence motion in December 2020,

nearly two years after Dr. Lotfi had ordered the tests, none of the testing

     14Ratcliff v. LHR, Inc., No. 09-07-00566-CV, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS
3659, at *4-5 (Tex. App.—Beaumont May 28, 2009, pet. denied).
                                    14
based on what Botts provided the trial court appears to have been done.

And without the tests, there is nothing in the record that shows that Dr.

Lotfi had completed the investigation he thought he needed to diagnose

whether the March 2018 collision caused the symptoms Botts was

complaining about when he appeared in Dr. Lotfi’s office in February

2019. On top of the problems with Dr. Lotfi’s report, Botts failed to

designate Dr. Lotfi as an expert witness in response to any of the docket

control orders the trial court signed in the case.

     On appeal, Botts argues for the first time he also wanted to take

the deposition of three other experts in the case named by the defendants,

experts he doesn’t name in his brief. But when Botts was in the trial

court, the sole complaint he raised in his motion for continuance was that

he needed more time so that he could obtain the deposition of his expert,

Dr. Lotfi. The record does not support Botts’s claim that he asked the

trial court to continue the hearing so that he could depose expert

witnesses other than Dr. Lotfi. Because that part of Botts’s argument

                                    15
does not comport with the argument he presented in his motion for

continuance, it was not preserved for our review in the appeal. 15

     Last, we turn to the claim Botts preserved, that he didn’t have

adequate time to discover the testimony of Dr. Lotfi. Botts’s argument

implies the only way he could defeat Farwah’s no-evidence motion was

by taking Dr. Lotfi’s deposition. We disagree.

     Under the rule that applies to summary judgment evidence, Rule

166a(c), a party opposing a motion for summary judgment may file an

affidavit supporting its response. 16 So Botts didn’t need Dr. Lotfi’s

deposition to support his response. Instead, he could have (if Dr. Lotfi

would have provided him with the opinion that he needed) had Dr. Lotfi

sign an affidavit stating that in his opinion, Farwah had been injured in

the automobile collision of March 2018 and that, Botts’s serious

     15Tex.  R. App. P. 33.1(a)(1) (requiring parties to state the grounds
for the rulings they seek from the trial court with sufficient specificity to
make the trial court aware of their complaints, unless the grounds are
apparent from the context); see Mendez v. Delgado, No. 04-18-00454-CV,
2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 6053, at *6 (Tex. App.—San Antonio July 17, 2019,
no pet.) (“Because the complaint Mendez presents on appeal differs from
the complaint she made in her motion for continuance, she has not
preserved this issue for review on appeal.”).
      16Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(c) (“Except on leave of court, the adverse

party, not later than seven days prior to the day of hearing, may file and
serve opposing affidavits or other written response.”).
                                     16
neurological injuries were in the doctor’s opinion in reasonable medical

probability related to the March 2018 collision. Stated another way,

Botts’s claim that Farwah’s counsel was unavailable for depositions of

experts didn’t prevent Botts from obtaining the evidence he needed to

defeat Farwah’s motion for summary judgment. Since Botts had the

burden on his motion for continuance to establish his motion was

supported by sufficient cause, we cannot say the trial court abused its

discretion by denying the motion when the record shows the trial court

had continued the case twice to allow the parties to obtain depositions

from their experts, but after granting the continuances, no depositions

from any experts were obtained. 17

     On this record we hold the trial court didn’t abuse its discretion in

denying Botts’s motion for continuance because: (1) this case involves a

collision between two vehicles, where neither driver was hospitalized

following the collision; (2) Botts would have needed only an opinion from

one doctor to support his theory that his serious physical and neurological

injuries were caused by the collision in March 2018 to have controverted

     17Tex.  R. Civ. P. 251 (stating “nor shall any continuance be granted
except for sufficient cause”).
                                     17
the issue raised in Farwah’s motion; (3) Botts had sufficient time to

obtain evidence and respond to Farwah’s motion to support his claim

given the length of time the case was on the trial court’s docket and the

time he had to respond to Farwah’s motion and the narrow issue she

raised in her motion for summary judgment challenging causation; (4)

the history of the case while it was pending on the trial court’s docket;

and (5) the fact that when Farwah filed her no-evidence motion, Botts

still didn’t have any evidence supporting his claim of the collision caused

his injuries even though the case had been on file for more than a year.

                               Conclusion

     Having overruled Botts’s issues, the trial court’s judgment is

     AFFIRMED.

                                              _________________________
                                                   HOLLIS HORTON
                                                        Justice

Submitted on September 14, 2022
Opinion Delivered April 13, 2023

Before Golemon, C.J., Horton and Wright, JJ.

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