Court Opinion

ID: 9775855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:11:06.436568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:31.538548
License: Public Domain

KOEHLER, Justice,
dissenting.
Although I was one of a unanimous panel on the original opinion, I must now respectfully dissent from the reasoning and result previously supported by me and continued by the majority in its Opinion on the Motion for Rehearing.
Our Supreme Court has previously and consistently held that the unambiguous language of the Texas Wrongful Death Act, Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 71.002 (Vernon 1986), precludes recovery for the death of a fetus. Witty v. American General Capital Distributors, Inc., 727 S.W.2d 503, 504 (Tex.1987); Yandell v. Delgado, 471 S.W.2d 569 (Tex.1971). The majority are now attempting to accomplish a result previously prohibited from a front door assault by coming through the back door, the latter being left somewhat ajar by some language in Witty and by the Houston First Court of Appeals in Wheeler v. Yettie Kersting Memorial Hospital, 761 S.W.2d 785 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1988, writ denied).1
It is the opinion of the writer that both this Court and the Houston Court misinterpreted what Justice Robertson meant when he stated that Mrs. Witty’s common law claim for mental anguish experienced as a result of the loss of her fetus was barred under the Workers’ Compensation Act. He added that “[t]he mental anguish suffered by Mrs. Witty is a part of the injury suffered as a result of the accident. Such injury is covered by the provisions of the Worker’s Compensation Act.” [Emphasis added]. Witty, 727 S.W.2d at 506. We doubt that anyone would argue that loss of a fetus or injury to a fetus while the expectant mother is working in the course and scope of her employment is, in the absence of a compensible injury, covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. Such loss or injury would be covered only to the extent the expectant mother required medical attention and/or her ability to remain on the job was affected. To the undersigned, the Court meant exactly what Justice Robertson said, that the mental anguish experienced by Mrs. Witty was a part of the injury caused by her trip and fall and thus barred by her compensation claim.
As even the Appellants have admitted, one of the essential elements of a medical malpractice suit is that the failure of the doctor to conform to required standards of conduct must result in actual injury to the complaining party. Cloys v. Turbin, 608 S.W.2d 697, 700 (Tex.Civ.App. — Dallas 1980, no writ). “Actual injury” means physical injury. In the case under consideration, the primary, nay the only, cause of Mrs. Crites’ injuries was the automobile accident which preceded the alleged negligent omissions of the two doctors. If the law requires that a person must have suffered some physical injury before he or she *178can claim damages for mental anguish, Duncan v. Luke Johnson Ford, Inc., 603 S.W.2d 777, 779 (Tex.1980), Mr. and Mrs. Crites must fail for the simple reason that they do not claim that they suffered physical injury as a result of the alleged omissions. Their claim for mental anguish damages is based entirely on their allegations of negligent omissions by the two doctors which caused the death of the “Crites child.” They do not allege that the doctors’ omissions caused physical injury to either of them.2 This is a plain, not a thinly disguised, claim for mental anguish damages in what amounts to an action for wrongful death. As the Supreme Court has pointed out on a number of occasions, “no cause of action may be maintained for the death of a fetus under the wrongful death statute until the right to bring such action is afforded by the legislature.” Witty, 727 S.W.2d at 506; Blackman v. Langford, 795 S.W.2d 742 (Tex.1990); Tarrant County Hospital District v. Lobdell, 726 S.W.2d 23 (Tex.1987).
Based on the pleadings, the summary judgment evidence and the law, I would affirm the take-nothing judgment of the trial court.

. In Wheeler, the successful movant for summary judgment did not address in its Motion for Summary Judgment the causes of action for mental anguish and emotional damages alleged by the plaintiffs in their second and third amended petitions, both of which were filed subsequent to the filing of the Motion for Summary Judgment. The Court held that what purported to be a "final judgment” was in fact an interlocutory judgment and ordered a remand for consideration of the unaddressed "common law causes of action.” Id. at 787.

. Paragraph V, of Plaintiffs’ Original Petition, is as follows:
Each Defendant violated the duty owed to Jill Crites and Norman Crites to exercise the ordinary care and diligence exercised by other physicians in the same or similar circumstances, and each Defendant was negligent in the following particulars:
(a) In failing to use reasonable skill, care, and diligence to correctly diagnose the injury and trauma to the Crites’ child;
(b) In failing to treat the injury to the Crites’ child;
(c) In failing to diagnose the condition of the child without making proper tests;
(d)In failing to follow generally accepted standards in the community for the treatment of a fetus who has received injury from an accident;
Each and every one of the foregoing acts and omissions, taken separately and collectively, constitute a direct and proximate cause of the death of the Plaintiffs' child. Each and every of the foregoing acts and omissions, taken separately and collectively, constitute a direct and proximate cause of injury to the Plaintiffs in the form of past and future mental anguish.