Court Opinion

ID: 9668138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:03:38.070878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:43.257113
License: Public Domain

TAFT, Justice,
dissenting.
I withdraw my dissenting opinion of May 24, 2001 and substitute this dissenting opinion in its place.
The conduct of appellee, the Methodist Hospital, was not so extreme and outrageous as to permit recovery. To support a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, the conduct must be so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Natividad v. Alexsis, Inc., 875 S.W.2d 695, 699 (Tex.1994). A Texas plaintiff has an exceptionally difficult burden to recover for this cause of action. CM. v. Tomball Reg’l Hosp., 961 S.W.2d 236, 244 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1997, no writ).
Recognizing this extraordinary burden in CM., we held that the conduct of an emergency room nurse, who refused to examine a minor rape victim to determine the degree of her injury, refused to prepare a “rape kit” on the minor, treated the minor and her mother with “disdain, disgust and indignity,” and caused information about the rape of the minor to be broadcast among other patrons of the emergency room by interviewing the minor in the public waiting room, was not extreme and outrageous. See id. Similarly, while Methodist’s withholding the four slides from Angela for 18 months may be “morally unjustifiable, unscrupulous and ignominious behavior,” it is not extreme and outrageous. See Delgado v. Methodist Hosp., 936 S.W.2d 479, 486 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1996, no writ) (holding conduct of doctors who told plaintiff they would send her home and cease medical treatment unless she took a semi-private room did not rise to the level of “extreme and outrageous”).
*799I also disagree with the majority’s finding Dr. Bentlifs affidavit conclusory. When no facts are stated to support conclusions in affidavits, the affidavits are not proper summary judgment proof. Rizkallah v. Conner, 952 S.W.2d 580, 587 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1997, no writ). A conclusory statement is one that provides no underlying facts to support its conclusion. Id.
Dr. Bentlifs conclusion here is based on his examining all of Angela’s medical records, including Dr. Whitman’s notation of the possibility of Crohn’s disease prior to-the operation and Dr. Bailey’s conclusion, which concurred with Dr. Laucirica’s pathology report, that Angela had Crohn’s disease. Thus, Dr. Bentlif did not merely examine Angela’s medical records, although this alone would not have made his affidavit conclusory according to this Court.1 Instead, Dr. Bentlif adopted the conclusion of Dr. Bailey, which was based on a pathology report, and thereby set forth a factual basis for his conclusion. Accordingly, I would find that Dr. Bentlifs affidavit was not conclusory, but was competent summary judgment evidence.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. See Davis v. Medical Evaluation Specialists, Inc., 31 S.W.3d 788, 794-95 (Tex.App.— Houston [1st Dist.] 2000, pet. denied).