Court Opinion

ID: 9815036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 00:21:40.024013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:05.306360
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM J. BOYCE, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s disposition because we already have crossed this bridge; the result here is dictated by Ross v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, No. 14-12-00885-CV, 2013 WL 1136613, at *1-2 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] Mar. 19, 2013, pet. filed) (mem. op.). I write separately to suggest that we should retrace our steps over the bridge and address anew whether a slip-and-fall claim by a hospital visitor is a health care liability claim under Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.
Every new law student quickly learns the legal reasoning process in which a professor first posits a rule, and then explores how the rule applies to a series of increasingly attenuated factual scenarios; eventually, a vanishing point is reached at which applying the rule to a particular situation no longer serves the purpose for which the rule was formulated. Thus is the student introduced to the concept of legal line-drawing.
No one disputes that a “[h]ealth care liability claim” encompasses a patient’s claim against a doctor for professional negligence in providing medical treatment. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 74.001(a)(13) (Vernon Supp.2013). This concept potentially reaches a patient’s claim that a doctor committed an assault during an exam. Loaisiga v. Cerda, 379 S.W.3d 248, 257 (Tex.2012). Additionally, it encompasses a hospital employee’s negli*188gence claim for injuries to the employee arising from the employee’s patient care activities. Tex. W. Oaks Hosp., LP v. Williams, 371 S.W.3d 171, 183-86 (Tex. 2012); see also Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. v. Palit, 414 S.W.3d 724, 726 (Tex.2013); CHCA Bayshore, L.P. v. Salazar, No. 14-12-00928-CV, 2013 WL 1907888, at *1-5 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] May 7, 2013, pet. denied) (mem. op.). All of these scenarios have at least some direct or indirect relation to the delivery of health care services to patients.
I believe the vanishing point has been reached when a claim by a non-patient, non-employee hospital visitor who allegedly slips on water in the hallway is treated as a Chapter 74 health care liability claim requiring a Chapter 74 expert report. This claim differs in detail, but not in concept, from a slip-and-fall attributed to an oily spot next to the gas pump; an icy patch near the store entrance; or an errant piece of lettuce in the produce aisle.
I agree with opinions concluding that characterizing a slip-and-fall claim by a hospital visitor as a Chapter 74 health care liability claim is not compelled by Chapter 74’s language, by the policies underlying the statute, or by the supreme court’s decision in Williams. See Christus St. Elizabeth Hosp. v. Guillory, 415 S.W.3d 900, 901-03 (Tex.App.-Beaumont 2013, pet. filed); Doctors Hosp. at Renaissance, Ltd. v. Mejia, No. 13-12-00602-CV, 2013 WL 4859592, at *1-4 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi Aug. 1, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.). This issue has split the intermediate courts of appeals and awaits resolution by the Texas Supreme Court; in addition to Ross, at least one other opinion has concluded that a slip-and-fall claim asserted by a hospital visitor is a health care liability claim and therefore is subject to Chapter 74’s expert report requirement. E. Tex. Med. Ctr. Reg’l Health Care Sys. v. Reddic, 426 S.W.3d 343, 346-48 (Tex.App.-Tyler 2014, no pet. h.).
Memorial Hermann does not identify— and I cannot discern — a nexus between Galvan’s claimed injury and the provision of health care, other than the hospital location of the visitor’s alleged fall. Instead, Memorial Hermann points to Williams and Ross and argues as follows: “The Texas Supreme Court has recently held, and this Court has affirmed, that safety claims need not be directly related to health care to be characterized as a Health Care Liability Claim ... pursuant to Chapter 74.... ” This assertion does not answer the line-drawing question posed by this case. Saying that safety claims “need not be directly related to health care” to fall within Chapter 74 is not equivalent to saying that Chapter 74 reaches safety claims lacking any relation to health care whatsoever.