Court Opinion

ID: 9612750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:11:03.880046+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:22.783815
License: Public Domain

JAN P. PATTERSON, Justice,
dissenting on motion for rehearing.
Because the reasoning underlying our resolution of the important issue presented by this appeal has implications for thousands of claims, and the original opinion unwittingly complicates the future proceedings in this case and others, I would grant the appellees’ motion for rehearing. The Court’s opinion acknowledges the critical procedural posture of this case: The administrative law judge abated the test cases — while discovery issues were being litigated — because the Hospitals filed a suit for declaratory judgment. It was this discovery dispute that spawned in part this litigation.
The unassailable narrow ground for decision in this case, as appellees correctly observe, is that rule 134.1(c) requires that *113reimbursement decisions be governed by the basic statutory standards set out in Texas Labor Code section 413.011(d). This coincides with what the Hospitals and the Commission agreed to in the 1997 compromise settlement agreement when the Hospitals nonsuited and dismissed with prejudice their claims against the Commission. Any finer parsing of the standard is premature and must await discovery and completed administrative hearings. Accordingly, I would grant appellees’ motion for rehearing to clarify the issues and resolve this dispute. Because the Court does not, I respectfully dissent.