Court Opinion

ID: 9678390
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:18:25.484929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:04.074655
License: Public Domain

GAMMAGE, Justice,
concurs and dissents, joined by DOGGETT, Justice.
I concur in the judgment of the court to the extent it remands to the trial court the cause involving the doctor and nurse. I concur with the majority opinion that official immunity was not established as a matter of law, though I disagree with the standard the court adopts. In my view, if non-governmental discretion is involved in the decision at all, the employee should not be able to claim official immunity.
I further agree that the special suicide defense is not established as a matter of law, Tex.Civ.PRAC. & Rem.Code § 93.001(a)(1), (2), and with the conclusion that other special defenses were not raised or established as a matter of law.
I join in Chief Justice Phillips’ conclusion in his concurring and dissenting opinion that confiscation of medication is a use of tangible property. I am incredulous that the majority call it a “non-use” of tangible physical property to confiscate medication prescribed by other physicians from the owner for whom it was prescribed, and then knowingly and consciously withhold it from her. As the majority even admits, there was expert medical testimony that it was negligent to discharge Johnson from the hospital without her medication, and such action could have proximately caused her death.
Although “use” of the medication is all we really must address to conclude the Tort Claims Act applies in this case, I believe the dissenting portion of Chief Justice Phillips’ opinion falls short in two instances. First, although I understand we are now bound by York and what I view as its erroneous holding, I still believe the use of Johnson’s medical records and difficult patient file do state a *16claim for misuse of tangible personal property. University of Texas Medical Branch v. York, 871 S.W.2d 175, 180-81 (Tex.1994) (Gammage, J., dissenting). Second, by properly distinguishing York, I would hold that a “non-use” of property is not in all instances insufficient to state a claim under the Tort Claims Act. As I have explained before, the non-use of some item of property necessary to make safe the use of property supplied has properly been held actionable. Id. at 181-82. Today’s opinion makes reconciling our prior decisions all the more difficult, if not impossible. Because I cannot join in the holding that the Tort Claims Act does not reach these facts, I respectfully dissent.