Court Opinion

ID: 9674885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:36:53.640996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.061094
License: Public Domain

BRADY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. My reading of the summary judgment affidavits indicates a continuance of the physician’s treatment of appellant for the same skin condition. This would raise a fact issue to be determined by a trier of the facts on a trial on the merits.
Further, it appears that the majority’s construction of article 5.82, § 4, which provides two possible different dates limitations begins to run, makes the two dates the same:
“Suit must be filed within two years
(1) of the breach or the tort complained of or
(2) from the date the medical treatment that is the subject of the claim ... is completed_”
Under the majority’s interpretation, treatment ended when the use by the patient of the physician’s prescription drug was discontinued, which was the tort complained of. This also would be the same date as the date the medical treatment that is the subject of the claim is completed. *312The legislature made the two provisions disjunctive and it seems obvious they were not intended to mean the same date. I would hold that the medical treatment that is the subject of the claim in the case at bar is not the prescribing of the drug, and the appellant’s discontinuance of its use, but rather the completion of the physician’s continuing treatment of appellant for the same skin condition. Appellant would then have two years from this date in which to file suit.
An example may illustrate the problem: A doctor gives a patient a drug which results in harmful side effects and discontinues the treatment with that drug. He then tries to alleviate the side effects and the original malady with another drug for a period of two years, but fails. Under the majority’s construction, the date limitations begins to run for both dates set out in the statute would be the day the doctor discontinued treatment with the drug which caused the side effects. That is the last date the doctor acted negligently by prescribing that drug and that is the date on which that particular type of treatment was completed. The congruity of dates, it seems to me, would always be the case under the majority’s construction.
After .reading the summary judgment affidavits, it appears there was a controverted fact issue of whether or not there was continuing treatment within the two-year period prior to suit. This issue should be determined by the trier of fact upon a trial on the merits.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court sustaining the motion for summary judgment.